


Harry No 5 and the Chamber of Secrets

by Silverfox



Series: Harry No. 5 [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-13
Updated: 2018-10-18
Packaged: 2019-08-01 09:41:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 22,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16282193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silverfox/pseuds/Silverfox
Summary: The second book in the Harry No. 5 series





	1. Chapter 1: The Worst Birthday

Chapter 1: The Worst Birthday

 

At first Harry felt disappointed that his birthday was on a transfer day that year. There'd be a feast for dinner anyway, so his cake wouldn't be as special. It would have been so much better to have it on an ordinary day!

But when he got down for breakfast he found his cake already on the Gryffindor house table. It was huge - as usual at Hogwarts institute - decorated with 12 candles and the words "Happy Birthday, Harry!"

The whole house sang Happy Birthday to You, and was rewarded with a piece of cake each. Luckily that still left enough pieces to also give some to Draco, Vincent and Gregory.

A very strange looking creature popped into view the moment Harry blew out the candles and snapped several pictures of him and his friends. As Harry was busy cutting and distributing the cake, something he'd never been allowed to do himself before, it disappeared before he could ask it any questions.

"They must be in a hurry, because they have so much to do to prepare for the arrival of the new first years," Hermione said when Harry mentioned his disappointment. "And they want to get the birthday celebration over with to be able to focus on that."

"So where are the presents?" Ron demanded.

"Oh, let Harry eat his cake in peace!" Hermione scolded him, but Harry too was curious what he'd been given.

So he pushed his plate aside and started opening parcels. There were the usual sweets, though fewer than he'd gotten at Christmas and none of them Muggle this time. Then there was a pretty eagle feather quill, a little pouch of gobstones ... a studying program for Science?

"This must be the one from my Aunt and Uncle," Harry decided.

"They must not know that computers don't work at Hogwarts institute," Hermione agreed.

"What is Science?" Draco asked.

"What are computers?" asked Ron.

"Why would they send you a study program as a gift?" was Neville's question.

"It's a very important subject in Muggle school," Hermione said. "It's all about the things they use to make their replacements for spells. Most likely they are worried because Harry isn't learning it here. He might need to know it if he wants to work for a Muggle company someday. It's a very nice thought."

"But it is useless," Harry said a little disappointedly, but then shrugged it off and put the program aside. There was still a very big parcel left, one that was so long it had been leaned against the table instead of placed on it.

He reached for it and tore off the wrapping paper to find ...

"A broom!" Ron gasped. "Somebody actually bought you your own broom!"

"Fantastic! Can we try it?" Draco exclaimed.

"Oh, wow!" gasped Gregory.

"But nobody else got his own broom!" Neville said wide-eyed.

"Own brooms aren't allowed in first year," Hermione explained. "But we become second years today, so I suppose Harry is the first one allowed to get one. I wonder who sent it, though. They must know that you play Quidditch. And they must have a lot of money. Brooms are very expensive."

"It can't be my Aunt and Uncle," Harry decided. "They sent the Science program."

"Muggles wouldn't know where to buy a racing broom," Hermione agreed. "It must have been a wizard. I bet it was the same one that sent you that cloak for Christmas."

"But who?" Draco asked. "Harry's parents are dead. Who else would care enough about a child to spend that much money?"

"Maybe it's from the school," Neville suggested. "And the rest of us will get them for our thirteenth birthdays, because we were still first years on our twelfth."

"Nonsense, brooms are much too expensive for that," Hermione said.

"And if everybody did get them," Ron added. "Why do the rest of the Quidditch team ride school-brooms?"

"You must have a magical relative still alive that you don't know about," Draco said.

"Oh yes," Neville exclaimed happily. "A grandmother or grandfather. Those are supposed to be great givers."

A grandparent? Could one meet grandparents when one was 16? But Harry still wanted to meet his Aunt and Uncle. Could one have both or was that too greedy?

That decision was still far in the future, though, and so Harry pushed the thought aside and returned to enjoying his piece of cake.


	2. Chapter 2: Dobby's Warning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Notes: Sooo ... No holidays at the Dursleys that Harry might not return from, no letters Dobby can intercept. What will Dobby do?

Chapter 2: Dobby's Warning

 

As soon as they could get away after breakfast Harry and his friends went out to the Quidditch pitch to try out his new broom.

Harry of course took his turn first and would have let Ron go next, but his friend ruined it by loudly demanding that he had to be first, because he and only he was Harry's best friend.

Draco protested just as loudly that he'd thought he was Ron's best friend and Harry felt that it was his duty to take over the role of the nurses they no longer had and declare that they were spoiling his birthday by quarrelling and therefore were going to be the last that would be allowed to ride the broom.

That meant that he had to pick another first person. But whom?

He didn't feel he knew Neville well enough to give him that honour and Vincent and Gregory had shown signs of wanting to join the fight. That left only one other option.

Harry held his broom out to Hermione.

"Me?" she gasped. "But ... but I'm no good at flying!"

"Yes, you. You've been good and waiting patiently. And I've known you longest, too."

"But ..."

"You don't have to go fast or high, or do tricks, Hermione," Neville pointed out. "Just because this broom can go a lot faster than a school broom doesn't mean you can't ride it as slowly as you like."

And finally Hermione nodded and accepted the broom to take a slow, leisurely flight around the pitch.

"And then we'll have a Slytherin and then another Gryffindor, so there is no house preference," Harry decided.

Vincent and Gregory, remembering what had happened to Ron and Draco, politely agreed that Vincent should go before Neville and Gregory after him. Then Ron would be the last Gryffindor and Draco the last Slytherin.

That wasn't exactly fair, as Harry thought Ron had started the fight, but he couldn't go back on his Gryffindor - Slytherin rule now.

Draco luckily didn't protest and so they sat in the stands laughing and joking while one after the other of the group took his turn.

Draco had only just taken off when there was a sudden cracking sound and the strange little creature that had taken the pictures earlier appeared before them.

Or was it the same creature? It looked the same, but the first one had worn a neat towel with the Hogwarts crest on it while this one was wearing a dirty old towel.

"Master Harry!" it crowed in a shrill, but nevertheless male sounding voice. "Master Harry!"

"Um ... yes?" Harry admitted. He still didn't know what the creature was and he'd never been addressed as Master before. He was only a child after all.

"Master Harry must leave Hogwarts! Today!"

"But ... but why?" Harry stuttered.

Leave his institute? But he couldn't! Where else could he go? He wasn't old enough to be hired by a company yet. Or to know any of his relatives. Could one go to an unemployed camp before one was 16? And would he want to? They were supposed to be very awful places to inspire the lazy unemployed to become productive again.

"There is big danger at Hogwarts institute," Dobby explained. "Master Harry must stay safe! Master Harry has no idea what he means to us, the poor downtrodden of the wizarding world, and to Dobby in particular! Master Harry cannot imagine how terrible it was before he rescued us all from He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named."

"But, but, but ... What are you?" Harry finally resorted to his final question.

"I am Dobby. Dobby the house-elf."

That explained a lot, but far from everything. Harry had of course heard of the house-elves who worked in the kitchens and laundry of the institute.

"So you are part of the institute staff," Harry stated. "And you speak badly of it and try to send a child away? That's sabotage. You'll ruin your institute and then you'll be unemployed and unhappy!"

"Dobby is not!" Dobby squeaked. "Dobby does not belong to Hogwarts institute. Dobby belongs to his master!"

His master? But Dobby had called him Master!

"You belong to me?" Was this ugly creature another birthday present? Having his own personal servant might be nice, but the creature was so ugly and its voice was giving Harry a headache.

"Oh no, no," the house-elf squeaked shaking his big, ugly head his ears flying. "Dobby is a house elf. We have to serve the family who owns our house for ever and ever ... unless we are given clothes. And of course the family is very careful never to give Dobby even a sock."

"But then how do the Hogwarts elves do the laundry?" Hermione asked.

"Why, laundry isn't given to house elves!" Dobby squeaked. "House elves just find it in laundry baskets and clean it for masters."

"And it was You-Know-Who that enslaved you?" Hermione continued.

"Oh no, house elves have been enslaved much, much longer than that. Long before the Dark Lord was born. But in his heyday we were treated much, much worse than before. We were dirt. Lower than dirt! We were kicked and tortured and mistreated just for fun. ... Of course Dobby is still treated like dirt, but other house elves lives has improved. And we owe it all to Master Harry! Master Harry is still our hope! Master Harry must be kept safe! Master Harry must leave Hogwarts!"

"But where else should I go?" Harry asked.

"What danger?" Gregory asked nervously.

"It's not You-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, is it?" Vincent asked.

"Nooo ..." Dobby said in a strange tone and making a very strange face. "Not him."

Just then Draco landed and walked towards them. Dobby glanced at him, emitted a frightened squeak and disappeared again.

"What a strange creature," Neville said. "Are all house elves this weird?"

"No," said Ron and Vincent and Gregory shook their heads. "If you ask me this Dobby is totally insane."

Draco once he had heard the whole story agreed with that conclusion.

"Most likely his big danger at Hogwarts is all imaginary. We've defeated You-Know-Who. Who else would harm us? Or could with Headmaster Dumbledore here?"

Harry thought of how Professor Snape had tied up the troll that had gotten into the castle last year with a single twitch of his wand and had to agree. If all the professors were that formidable surely they must be perfectly safe.


	3. Chapter 3: The Burrow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Notes: I kind of missed the Dursleys, so ...

Chapter 3: The Burrow

 

The festhall of Grunnings Drills had been decorated carefully, the most expensive tables and chairs the company owned had been set up in it and the Grunnings kitchens had produced the most expensive dinner Vernon Dursley and Petunia Dursley-Evans had ever eaten ... or at least would have eaten after dinner that night.

At the moment they were still hungry and standing around with the other top Grunnings executives and executive-wives awaiting the arrival of the Masons, representatives of one of England's most important construction companies. If all went well tonight the Masons would sign a purchase contract for several hundreds of thousands of drills tomorrow morning that would keep the Grunnings factories working at full capacity for at least another year. And if the Masons were happy with the service and quality of those drills many more years to come.

Finally, finally the guests arrived in a black hover-limousine with the logo of their company. Vernon, who had been negotiating the deal for weeks, greeted them, introduced the other executives and their wives and finally Petunia who took Mrs Mason-Dawn's arm as if she were an old friend and led her into the festhall.

"Ah, elegant, elegant," Mr. Mason commented. "Though the style is a little outdated. Built about twenty years ago, wasn't it?"

"Oh yes," Vernon confirmed. "Along with the rest of the building. I suppose we'll have to modernise eventually, but as of now it still serves its purpose well enough and tearing down company buildings is such an annoying disruption of productivity."

"Oh, of course," Mr. Mason agreed. "Quite so, quite so. And when you do want to rebuild you know where to find us."

Drinks and soup were served by nervous waiters, and the conversation continued pleasantly during the meal, the men talking about drills and buildings respectively, while the women soon branched out into the subjects of clothes and jewellery. Women always had it easier when making friends, Vernon thought grudgingly, always at least one shared interest to fall back on.

But luckily he could expand on the differences between drilling concrete and metal while Mr. Mason went on about the respective merits of concrete and metal as building materials.

Over the third course Mr. Mason finally moved on to interior design and Vernon was just about to reply with an explanation of how much he preferred the more drillable wooden furniture over that made of plastics and glass when they were interrupted by shrieks in the hall outside.

"Oh, Mrs. Tanner-Boyd," Vernon shouted to a secretary turned waitress for the occasion who happened to be waiting close to the door with a tray of dessert. "Do have a look outside and ask them to kindly stop that racket."

"Yes Sir, of course Sir, right away Sir," the woman turned awkwardly juggling her tray to free a hand and open the door.

That turned out to have been a mistake. No sooner had she opened it than a strange brown and fuzzy shape fluttered through and collided with her tray.

Mrs. Tanner-Boyd shrieked, stumbled backwards on unfamiliarly high heels, tripped and dropped her tray splashing the delicious looking dessert of whipped cream and flower petals on the ground.

"What the!" Vernon began to roar, but then words failed him as the disaster continued to unfold.

The fuzzy brown thing, apparently some kind of bird that had lost its way and somehow ended up in the building, managed to avoid a collision with the secretary and saved itself by using the table as a landing track, leaving a trail of upset wine glasses, dishes and pitchers before catching hold of the apparent safety of a candle-holder.

That decorative, but not well balanced object had never been intended as a bird's perch however and after wobbling under the sudden weight for a moment tipped over spilling the squawking animal head-first into Mrs. Mason-Dawn's salad.

Almost all of the women present and several of the men screamed, but only Mrs. Mason-Dawn continued into a full-blown fit of hysterics and ran out of the room still screaming before anybody could stop her.

Mr. Mason stayed behind only long enough to ask them whether Grunnings employees considered this a good joke - unfortunately one of the waiters had tried to laugh it off - and inform them that his wife had a horror of birds of all kinds. Then he too returned to their company limousine which left the premises at top speed as soon as he had gotten in and closed the door behind him.

Vernon stared after them in shock. Then he yelled at Mrs. Tanner-Boyd until she too ran out sobbing.

He continued yelling for a while, now at the waiter who had laughed and was then trying to chase the bird out a window.

"That's an owl, isn't it?" somebody asked when Vernon stopped to regain his breath.

"It looks like one in any case. I wonder how it got inside."

"It must be so scared, poor thing."

Vernon was just about to inform them in no uncertain terms of what he thought of people who pitied birds that ruined huge business deals when Petunia touched his arm gently.

"It's no use, Vernon," she said. "Shouting about it now won't improve anything. It'll be more productive to clean up the mess and try to smooth things over in the morning."

"Oh look," somebody discovered. "There's a letter under the desert tray!"

"A letter? But how did it get there?"

"I suppose the bird must have dropped it. Stole it from somebody's in-tray I suppose."

"I thought they only steal glittering things?"

"That's magpies, you idiot."

"Well, who's the letter addressed to?" Vernon snapped.

"Mrs. Petunia Dursley-Evans," the one who'd found it read out. "Grunnings ..."

"Yes, yes," Vernon grumbled. "Just hand it over."

Petunia looking very perplexed, went and took the thick envelope from the man's hand.

"That's strange," she said. "I'm sure I left nothing in my inbox when I closed the office today."

"Maybe it arrived after you left and the owl grabbed it from the sorting desk," Vernon suggested.

He was not at all eager to accuse his own wife of having left the window open through which the bird had gotten in.

Petunia mechanically opened the letter, looked at the contents and gasped.

"It's Harry's annual progress report," she exclaimed. "How could that end up here instead of at the flat?"

"Who knows where the poor confused bird's flight took it before it arrived here," someone said with a shrug. "We'll have to check the entire complex for damage tomorrow."

"Harry?" Petunia's boss inquired. "Didn't you say your son's name was Dudley?"

"Why yes, it is," Petunia confirmed. "Harry is our nephew. The son of my dead sister. She and her husband died ... in a work accident. I get his progress reports because I am his closest living relative."

"We're paying some child support for him, so he doesn't have to be supported entirely by the orphan welfare fund," Vernon added hastily.

"Oh, how nice of you!" one of the older wives gushed. "Can we see the picture of the poor little orphan?"

"Why, he's not at all poor, Mary," her husband chided her. "He doesn't even know that his parents are dead. Thanks to the kindness of our government orphans are raised just the same as everybody else's children."

"And we're paying child support for his education, and sending him birthday gifts so he gets just as many as the other children, too," Vernon added.

It rather annoyed him that Petunia insisted on the gifts, but she claimed that the people at the school would think badly of them, if they didn't send any.

The woman still insisted that she wanted to see the picture and so Petunia fished around in the large envelope until she found it.

"You'll have to understand that we want to keep his health, behaviour, social and grade reports private, though," she said as she handed it over. "Just because he is an orphan doesn't mean that every stranger ought to be peeking into his life."

At first Vernon didn't understand why she insisted on that, but then somebody exclaimed: "Why that photograph's moving!" and he remembered just what sort of institute his nephew was in. Both he and Petunia paled wondering how to explain it away when the elderly Mary once again spoke up.

"Why you silly thing. It's just a vidgraph made to look like an old-fashioned photograph."

"And why are the boys wearing black dresses?"

"Oh don't you see the sticks they are waving around? It's a themed dress-up party and they are pretending to be magicians."

"What a nice idea for the children," a young man commented. "I still remember how much I loved to dress up when I was little."

"Well, personally I think that they are too old to play pretend," Vernon grumbled forgetting for a moment that Hogwarts really was a wizarding institute and those were most likely their normal uniforms. "I'm glad Smeltings doesn't do that sort of nonsense. We should have made them send Harry there along with Dudley. If we had sued ..."

"Now Vernon," Petunia reminded him. "It was his parents' wish that he should attend the same institute as his father. I'm sure it was not a crime of the institute to respect that more than our choice."

Vernon grumbled some more later that night when Petunia confessed that she thought Hogwarts always sent its progress reports by owl and informed her in no uncertain terms that from now on she'd have to spend Harry's birthdays alone in their flat to make sure that nobody else saw the birds.


	4. Chapter 4: At Flourish and Blotts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Notes: No trip to Diagon Alley for Harry and his friends, so how does Lucius get the diary to Hogwarts? ... Hmmm .... ;)

Chapter 4: At Flourish and Blotts

 

"This Dobby really wasn't a Hogwarts elf," Hermione remarked. "Just think of that dirty old rag he was wearing and compare it to the neat uniforms with the institutes’s crest the ones that take our birthday pictures have."

"Yes," Draco agreed. "I doubt the headmaster would let any of his staff be dressed that shabbily. It would reflect badly on the institute. He must be a privately owned elf."

"But only really rich people have the sort of houses that come with house elves," Ron said. "They don't need to dress their elves in rags either."

"Maybe," Hermione said thoughtfully. "Maybe Dobby didn't want us to see his uniform and the rag was the only other thing to wear he could find in a hurry?"

"Why wouldn't he want us to see it?" Harry asked. "It can't look worse than the rag."

"Because he doesn't want us to know who sent him," Draco said. "Most likely there is a crest on his uniform that could give away his owner, if we happen to recognise it."

"What makes you so sure someone sent him?" Hermione asked once again surprising Harry by knowing something Harry didn't realise had been said.

"Well, house elves have powerful magic," Draco explained. "But usually they can only use it to serve their owners. And Dobby must have used it to apparate on Hogwarts grounds."

"Unless he is a Hogwarts elf anyway," Hermione said. "Then he'd already have permission to apparate within the wards."

"But if he were a Hogwarts elf, he would have had no reason to hide his uniform," Draco returned. "He must be a stranger."

"Unless for some reason he wanted us to assume that he is a stranger," Hermione challenged.

It sounded like the argument would keep going in circles for a while, but luckily Ron had a good idea.

"Why don't we ask Hagrid whether he knows a house elf called Dobby?" he suggested. "He probably knows all the Hogwarts staff."

"But he's gone with the teachers. They're getting the new first years," Harry reminded them. Hagrid had fetched him and Hermione last year.

"I didn't see him go and he isn't a teacher, but even if he has he might be back by now," Ron replied. "Let's go to his hut and look."

As Harry had expected nobody answered the door when they knocked. They waited for a while, but then got bored and decided to take a walk around the lake instead.

No sooner had they started than they saw Hagrid's massive form appear on the path from the school to his hut.

They ran towards him.

"Hagrid! Hagrid! Where were you?"

"Me? Well, I just returned from London. Had to go to Knockturn Alley to get some flesh-eating slug repellent. And you'll never believe what happened when I passed Flourish and Blotts."

"Knockturn Alley?" Gregory asked worriedly. "But that's a really bad place."

"Yes, Hagrid," Vincent added eagerly. "You shouldn't go there. It's dangerous."

"Oh, why is it dangerous?" Harry asked. He'd never heard of the place.

"Ah, because it's full of dark arts stuff and dark wizards and creatures," Hagrid explained. "I never go if I can avoid it, but you can't get flesh-eating slug repellent in Diagon Alley. I tried. And I need it for my giant pumpkins. Can't let the slugs eat up all our decorations for Halloween, can we?"

"But Hagrid!" Hermione exclaimed. "Some silly decorations for a feast aren't worth risking your life for! I'm sure you could have come up with something else to use. Or bought pumpkins!"

"Why yes, but it wasn't that much of a risk," Hagrid assured her. "I didn't go in very far, you see, and I'm such a big, dangerous looking guy that they don't dare mess with me. It'd be very different if you went in there. You're just children and everybody would know at a glance that you don't know much magic yet. They'd think you're easy prey."

"But you don't have a wand at all!" Ron pointed out. "We can do more magic than you."

"Ah, but they don't know that," Hagrid said with a grin. "Besides, I have my trusty old umbrella. It can do a lot more than you'd think."

Harry gave the umbrella a doubtful look. It didn't seem all that impressive.

"Now, how would you like to see my pumpkins?" Hagrid asked. "Come on, I'll show you. And then we'll have tea. I'm out of rock cakes I'm afraid, but there's still some bread and honey left."

They agreed happily and accompanied Hagrid back to his hut.

"Say, Hagrid," Hermione asked as he was putting on the kettle. "Do you know an elf called Dobby?"

"Dobby? No, can't think of one. Is he a Hogwarts elf? There are a lot of them and they hardly ever come out here, so I don't know all the younger ones by name."

"Oh, could you ask someone maybe?" Hermione begged. "Just casually, because ... well, this Dobby came and said something odd to Harry and he wasn't dressed like a Hogwarts elf, so we'd like to know whether we can trust him."

"He said something odd to Harry? What did he say?" Hagrid demanded worriedly.

"That I must leave the institute," Harry replied. "But he didn't say where I can go."

"Why!" Hagrid exclaimed looking scandalised. "The nerve! No Harry, that never was no Hogwarts elf. You'd best stay clear of him. Now that I think of it, I think that arrogant bastard Malfoy has an elf that might be called Dobby. It'd be just like him, too. Why only today I saw him come out of Flourish and Blotts just when Professor Lockhart was leading his group of transferees past. And that bastard actually insulted the children even though they are the group from the wizarding primary institute. But I suppose Malfoy didn't know that. Knows so little about Muggles he didn't even notice the kids weren't wearing Muggle clothes."

"Who's Malfoy?" Draco asked.

"Why he's the biggest a..." but at that moment Hagrid actually looked at Draco and finally seemed to remember his manners and that he was talking to children.

He blushed and then said: "Well, no, of course not. I'm just upset about the things he said to the children, that's all. Actually Lucius Malfoy is ... um ... a very elegant and talented wizard who has done a lot of good for our society. He is very rich, too, and of a really old pureblood family and ... Well, that's exactly what the trouble with him is. While he's a perfectly fine and great wizard in every other way back when he was still young and easily influenced he fell in with You-Know-Who's Death Eaters. They say he was put under the imperius curse and forced to do whatever they wanted him to, but ... well, some people doubt it, but the Wizengamot believed it in any case. Me and Dumbledore, we think ... well, that he was sort of brainwashed. Those Death Eaters made nice to him and told him how purebloods are superior to Muggles and that Muggle-borns are bad for society, you see. They kept telling him those lies until he believed them. Wanted all his money to support their horrible cause I bet. So now You-Know-Who's gone and most of the really bad Death Eaters are in Azkaban, but some got away and some, like Malfoy, still believe the lies they told them and that makes them dangerous. Malfoy thinks that Muggle-borns are inferior, you see, and that they hold the pureblood children back, because they don't learn as quickly and the teachers always have to wait for them to master the last spell before teaching the next one. So he's against letting children from Muggle institutes into Hogwarts together with the pureblood and half-blood children. It'd be just like him to send his elf to tell all the children from Muggle institutes to leave."

"But both my parents were wizards!" Harry protested. "My old headmaster said they both went to Hogwarts institute!"

"Well, that Dobby was probably just told to tell children that came here from Muggle institutes," Draco said. "He didn't check who your parents are at all."

"But then why didn't he tell Neville and me as well?" Hermione wondered. "We were right there with Harry, but he only wanted to talk with him."

Hagrid shrugged, but Draco had an answer to that, too: "Maybe that horrid Malfoy didn't tell him why at all. Maybe he has a list and only ever tells Dobby the name of the next child on the list."

"That's possible," Hagrid agreed. "Malfoy is one of the school governors, so it wouldn't be all that difficult for him to get his hands on some transfer lists. The family information would be harder to get, because that's highly restricted. Only your parents have any business knowing that until you turn sixteen."

"I hate Malfoy," Draco declared on the way back to the castle for lunch. "He's such a bastard."

The others all nodded in agreement. As if it even mattered how talented one was or how quickly one learned magic, or how much one knew. That wouldn't make you happy. Only being productive could do that.


	5. Chapter 5: The Whomping Willow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Notes: Clearly Ron can't get at Mr. Weasley's car, but at least the Whomping Willow is where the children can find it ...

Chapter 5: The Whomping Willow

 

Lunch consisted only of some ham and eggs and pumpkin juice and then Mr. Filch, the caretaker, chased them out again because the Great Hall was supposed to be cleaned thoroughly before the sorting ceremony.

Harry and his friends went up to Gryffindor tower for a while, but it was unbearably hot in the dorms and the common room was so full that they couldn't find a chair, let alone three.

Hermione predictably suggested that they should go to the library and "read a little", but that didn't appeal to the boys.

"And I bet it's just as hot as the dorms, too," Ron predicted. "Can you really enjoy a book like that? I know I can't. All I'll be able to do is think about how hot it is."

"Let's go to the lake," Harry suggested. "The lake is cool."

"But that's not productive!" Hermione argued.

That was true and Harry almost relented, but Ron saved the situation with a compromise.

"How about making it an educational walk? We walk around the lake and stop at all the interesting points and Hermione ... er ... reminds us what we're supposed to know about them," he said. "That way we can be sure we haven't forgotten anything important."

"Oh yes!" Hermione exclaimed excitedly. "We'll make it a Hogwarts, a History tour. Just wait a moment so I can get my book."

Ron sighed resignedly. "Well, at least it will be more fun than sitting in the library."

In fact it turned out to be quite interesting when Hermione dragged them away from the lake to show them a fenced in tree.

"This," she announced. "Is the Whomping Willow, a very valuable magical tree that was planted about forty years ago. That must be about the time our parents were our age. Unless of course they had us unusually early or late. We definitely know that Harry's father must have been here around the time it was planted."

"Oh!" Harry exclaimed delightedly. "Maybe long ago my parents stood right where we are now and looked at the tree just like us!"

"So?" asked Ron. "What difference does that make?"

Hermione glared at him. "Don't you have any appreciation of history at all? Yes Harry, it is quite likely that they came to look at the tree, but it's more likely that they stood in a different spot. In those early days there was no fence, you see, and they could walk right up and try to touch it. In fact, a lot of children did just that. They even made a game of it. Apparently touching a Whomping Willow is a very challenging task as it doesn't like it and defends itself by trying to hit you with its branches. The game resulted in several injuries before it was officially forbidden and the fence put up to protect the students from the tree."

Harry looked at the tree which stood very tall and still on this almost windless day. It didn't look at all dangerous.

"But it's just a tree," Ron too said. "It can't really be dangerous unless you climb it."

"That's not what Hogwarts a History says," Hermione insisted. "It says they tried to touch it, not one word about climbing."

"How does it do that?" Harry asked. "It doesn't have eyes, so does it just drop its branches when it is touched? What happens when they're all gone?"

"Let's find out," Ron suggested and swung his leg over the fence before Hermione could shriek "No!"

"Don't! Oh, don't!" Hermione pleaded. "It's forbidden. We're going to get into so much trouble!"

But Ron didn't listen and so Harry had to climb in after him to fetch him back.

"Ron," he said taking hold of the back of his friend's robe. "Come on ..."

But just then all of a sudden the Whomping Willow moved. In a single fast swing it bent towards them and several large branches shot through the air at them. One collided with the boys swiping them off their feet and throwing them several metres back.

Harry dropped to the ground right in front of the fence and quickly rolled through under it. Surely he must be safe on the other side?

Ron wasn't as lucky. Apparently he'd been hit harder than Harry which caused him to actually collide with the fence.

"Ron!" Hermione screamed.

"Get out Ron!" Harry shouted still lying on the ground. "Quick!"

The Whomping Willow was pulling back for another blow.

"Levitate!" barked the angry voice of Professor Snape, Harry's least favourite, but very formidable teacher.

Ron's body was jerked into the air and over the fence. Then it lowered back down to the ground more gently.

"What do you three dunderheads think you're doing?" Snape demanded furiously.

"I was just showing them the Whomping Willow," Hermione explained hastily. "And telling them what I've read about it."

She showed Professor Snape Hogwarts a History by way of proof.

"Library books must not be taken outside, Hermione. How many times must I tell you that? Hand it over."

"But it isn't a library book, Professor," Hermione protested. "It's my very own copy. I bought it with my transfer money last year."

"Prove it then," Professor Snape demanded and Hermione handed over the book looking miserable.

The teacher however only lifted the front cover, glanced inside and returned it.

"Very well, you may go."

Hermione ran off clutching her book to her chest, but when a very relieved Harry and Ron tried to follow her Snape held them back.

"Not so fast. What were you doing inside the fence, James?"

"I'm Harry."

"What were you doing inside the fence, Harry?"

"I was getting Ron back out."

"Traitor!" Ron yelled. "You were just as eager to see how the tree hits people as I."

"Was not," Harry countered. "I wanted to know, but I didn't want to go in. Hermione said it's forbidden and dangerous."

"Sooo," Snape said triumphantly. "You even admit that you knew that it's forbidden. Come along you two."

Snape took them to his office, a very spooky place thanks to all the potions ingredients he stored there. There he told them how much they deserved to be thrown out of the institute for their disobedience.

Dobby and Mr. Malfoy would be really happy when they heard about it, Harry thought, but was it allowed before they were sixteen and able to start working? Surely they'd have to transfer him to another institute. Then they'd ask his aunt and uncle where they wanted him sent, and they'd say Smeltings Secondary Institute. They'd wanted Harry to go there from the start. Going to a Muggle institute again after a year of learning magic would probably be hard and he hated the thought of leaving all his friends behind, but on the other hand Dudley and Pierce, two of his dorm mates at his old primary institute were in Smeltings Institute. They'd even written him a card to say how much they liked it once. If he had to leave Hogwarts, Harry definitely didn't mind going to Smeltings.

Ron however looked very frightened. Even when Professor Snape left to fetch Professors McGonagall and Dumbledore, who were the only ones that had the power to throw them out, he still continued to tremble. Harry wished he knew how to help him, but Ron had been raised in magical institutes all his life. His parents had to be wizards who might not even know any Muggle institutes and once he got to one Ron wouldn't know how to act like a Muggle.

Harry hoped that they'd decide to send them both to Smeltings. Then he could show Ron what to do just like Ron had shown him how to be a wizard when they'd been transferred to Hogwarts.

But things turned out not to be all that bad after all. Professor McGonagall was furious and Headmaster Dumbledore disappointed, which made Harry feel even worse than Professor McGonagall's anger, but they said they'd only expel them, if they committed another misdeed and then sent them to bed without dinner. And they'd been looking forward to the feast so much!

"But of course there will be other feasts," Ron said when they climbed into their beds, now all alone in the empty Gryffindor tower. "And we can watch the sorting next year. It's a lot better than being thrown out."

That was of course true.


	6. Chapter 6: Gilderoy Lockhart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Notes: And here's dear old Professor Lockhart ... sigh, let's get it over with then.

Chapter 6: Gilderoy Lockhart

 

Everybody was very eager to have Defence Against the Dark Arts with the new teacher, Professor Lockhart, whom Harry and Ron hadn't seen at all, yet.

"He looks great!" Hermione who'd seen him at the feast told them.

"Very colourful at least," Draco seemed less impressed. "But his robe clashed awfully with the headmaster's."

"It doesn't matter what he looks like, if he is productive," Harry reminded them both.

"Oh, I'm sure he is," Hermione said. "Just look at all the books we got for his class. He wrote them all himself!"

"Yes, as if one course book wouldn't have been enough," Ron grumbled.

"They're good for building up muscle," Vincent remarked.

"But I don't think I can read that much in only one year," Gregory worried.

"It must mean he wants to teach us a lot," Hermione said delightedly.

"I don't like that," Gregory pointed out. "I'm the slowest learner in our class. What if I can't keep up?"

"They won't kick you out, if you just do the best you can," Hermione assured him. "After all this is the only secondary institute for magic. Where else could you go?"

"A Muggle institute," Harry said and Gregory shuddered. Just like Ron he'd never been to one in his life.

None of the second years were lucky enough to have Defence Against the Dark Arts as the first thing on their schedules that morning and soon Harry, Hermione and Ron were on their way to the greenhouses for two hours of Herbology with the Hufflepuffs, while their Slytherin friends were going to Transfigurations with the Ravenclaws.

"Oh look, there he is!" Hermione shouted suddenly pointing at a very immaculate looking wizard that was walking towards them together with Professor Sprout.

"That's Professor Lockhart?" Harry asked surprised. Somehow the man didn't look like a teacher.

"Yes I am!" Professor Lockhart confirmed beaming widely. "And you're Harry P..."

"Gilderoy!" Professor Sprout interrupted him sternly.

"Ah yes, you want to start your class of course and I ought to go prepare for mine, but could I borrow Harry P.."

"Yes, Gilderoy, that is Harry Number 5!" Professor Sprout said even more loudly. "But please remember that we always call our students by their first names alone unless the number is absolutely required to prevent confusion. Now come inside children."

And to Harry's disappointment she pulled him along despite Lockhart's wish to borrow him. He'd have liked to get the chance to see more of the teacher that whatever errand he wanted him for would have given him.

Instead he had to spend two hours re-potting mandrakes, but he got to work with Justin which wasn't bad either. Justin had attended the same primary institute as Harry and Hermione and they'd been transferred together. When they'd been sorted he had gone to Hufflepuff however and they had spent very little time together since then.

Tired and dirty from the work they trudged back to the castle that housed the institute for their next lesson. It was Transfigurations and they had to turn beetles into buttons. Unfortunately Harry's beetle wouldn't hold still long enough for him to perform the spell and he only earned a sharp reprimand from Professor McGonagall not to be so lazy. At least he did better than Ron, though. All Ron's wand produced were stinking puffs of smoke.

"I must have fallen on it when the tree hit us," he explained to Harry. "I fixed it with spellotape, but it's still not quite right."

"Go tell Professor McGonagall," Harry urged him. "You have to go to Diagon Alley and buy a new one."

Ron shook his head. "She'd tell me it's my own fault for doing something forbidden."

"Well, that is true."

 

During lunch break a tiny first year with a camera ran up to Harry and asked him for a picture. Colin, it turned out, came from a Muggle institute and wanted to send pictures of all the magical sights back to his old Muggle friends.

"But that's forbidden," Hermione told him. "They mustn't find out about magic."

"And why do you want a picture of me? I'm not a sight," Harry pointed out.

But Colin didn't explain. He seemed to be heartbroken at what Hermione had told him.

"I spent all my transfer money on the camera so I could take the pictures for them," he explained. "And now it's useless."

"Why," said Hermione. "You could make a photo album for yourself and look at it with your magical friends when you're all grown up. And you could take pictures for the yearbooks."

Colin was still sniffling a little and Harry was trying to think of something consoling to say when Professor Lockhart passed by and caught sight of the camera.

He insisted on having his picture taken with Harry and then gave Harry a long and very hard to follow lecture on fame. Harry was unable to figure out whether Lockhart was telling him that one ought to make a huge spectacle of oneself in order to gain fame or that it was important to be humble and modest and avoid it. Either way however Harry wished that Lockhart would just let him go away so people would stop staring curiously at him. This fame stuff seemed to be embarrassing.

He only managed to escape once they'd reached Lockhart’s classroom, though, and the lesson was disappointing, too. Apparently Professor Lockhart had prepared a test on the content of his books and only found out in his first lesson that the new textbooks had only been handed out to the students that very morning, so obviously they hadn't had time to even start reading them yet.

Instead of handing out the test sheets he released a cage full of Cornish pixies in the classroom, lost his wand to one of them and departed leaving the students to recapture the pixies and clean up the mess they'd made. Even stuttering Professor Quirrel with Voldemort in the back of his head had been more productive than that.

"And it was more interesting to listen to him, too," Ron stated. "This was just a waste of time."


	7. Chapter 7: Mudbloods and Murmurs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Notes: Slugs and a nightmare.

Chapter 7: Mudbloods and Murmurs

 

For some reason Professor Lockhart seemed to have taken a liking to Harry and Harry soon learned to hide quickly whenever he saw him coming. His Quidditch team-mates Frederic and George were a lot of help with that. They knew many secret passages all over the castle and were happy to share their knowledge with fellow Gryffindors.

"But don't tell those stinking Slytherins," they'd threaten him sometimes, though. "Or we'll never share any secrets with you again."

Harry and his friends would laugh and agree and show the place to Draco, Gregory and Vincent when the twins, as George and Frederic were convinced they were, weren't around. After all they'd only promised not to show stinking Slytherins and their friends didn't stink.

Ron's spello-taped wand kept causing trouble. One day it flew straight into Professor Flittwick's face giving him a nasty boil, on another it backfired causing Ron to miss Harry's Quidditch training because he was throwing up slugs.

"It serves you right, though," Hermione informed him. "Hexing people is not at all nice."

"He called me a Mudblood!" Ron protested.

"A what?" Harry asked. He had never even heard the word before.

"A," another outburst of slugs. "Mudblood. That's a really, really bad word for Muggle born. It says that Muggle blood is filthy and ... well, you know. It's really, really bad and you should never ever say it."

"But nobody even knows whether they're Muggle born or not!" Hermione exclaimed. "We'll only find out when we're sixteen and get told who our parents are."

Ron wiped another slug off his lips. "I'm pretty sure I'm not. Muggle parents don't know about the wizarding institutes, so they wouldn't have put me in the wizarding nursery institute."

"Muggle parents wouldn't even have known you'd be a wizard when they placed you," Hermione agreed. "So it would not have made sense for them to put you in a magical institute."

"See, I'm not Muggle born. I've got to be at least a half-blood."

Harry shrugged. He didn't see why it mattered whether one's parents could do magic or not as long as they were productive.

That evening he and Ron had to serve detention for annoying the Whomping Willow. Unfortunately they weren't allowed to serve it together, though. Ron had to clean in the trophy room with Mr. Filch while Harry was sent to Professor Lockhart to help him answer his fan mail and listen to more of his confusing advice on fame.

At some point Harry must have nodded off, though, because he suddenly heard a voice talking about killing, but when he started up and asked Lockhart the teacher told him that he hadn't heard anything at all. It must have been just a nightmare.


	8. Chapter 8: The Deathday Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Notes: Will Harry dare or won't he ... small changes mostly to have changes at all in here, to be honest.

Chapter 8: The Deathday Party

 

As the weather got colder that autumn a wave of flu hit the school and Harry was very impressed how quickly Madame Pomfrey's pepper-up potion could cure it. For those not affected it had the additional advantage that it made the cured students' ears smoke for several hours after the treatment. Especially one particularly small Gryffindor first year, a girl called Ginevra, who had fiery red hair provided them with several hours of excellent entertainment as they jeered and tried to outdo each other in inventing creative names to call her. Unfortunately she ended the fun early by running away crying.

Harry himself was lucky enough to remain healthy despite a lot of Quidditch training in the rain. Argus Filch, the caretaker, on the other hand caught a very bad cold which put him in a terrible mood on the day his cat, Mrs Norris, caught Harry returning from training wearing muddy boots.

Mr. Filch took Harry to his office and was just trying to decide what terrible punishment he could inflict on him when a loud crash interrupted him.

"Peeves!" Filch shouted and took off after the institute's poltergeist.

Harry hesitated. Should he stay and await his just punishment or leave and hope that Filch would forget him over the poltergeist's misdeed? At his primary institute such disappearing acts had always worked, but Filch had already written his name on the form. He hadn't even had to ask for it, so he knew who Harry was and the form would remind him of the deed.

But if the form wasn't there? Very cautiously Harry reached out and picked it up. Should he pocket it and leave? Throw it into the fire? His punishment would most likely be worse if he was caught trying to escape it.

But Filch was already in such a bad mood that Harry was sure he was going to give him the worst punishment possible anyway.

For a moment he stood there undecided. Looking around for inspiration what to do he noticed a purple envelope with the word Quickspell on it that was lying on Filch's desk, but that wasn't any help. Then he remembered that he was a Gryffindor and Gryffindors were supposed to be brave and risk-taking and took off.

On the way back to Gryffindor tower he learned that he hadn't been rescued by coincidence after all. Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor house ghost had provoked Peeves into committing the deed to help him! Out of gratitude Harry agreed to attend Nick's 500th deathday party instead of the Halloween feast, which led to mixed reactions from his friends.

The Slytherins called him a noble-hearted fool and promised to sneak out some pumpkin pastries for him, Ron called him an idiot and refused to have anything to do with the party, while Hermione was fascinated with the idea and begged to be allowed to come along.

Once there Harry was glad that he had brought her. He wouldn't have liked to be the only living person at a ghost party and Hermione also knew a lot more ghosts than he did. Perhaps, if she hadn't come he would have been spared the introduction to Moaning Myrtle, though. He could have done without that.

They spent some time talking with various ghosts to be polite, but then snuck off, because they were getting very hungry and the ghosts only served spoiled food.

"I hope they still have some food left in the Great Hall," Harry said when they reached the ground floor, but then he heard that horrible voice that he had once dreamed of in Professor Lockhart’s office.

"Let me kill!" it said and Harry yelped and looked around hastily. But there was nobody in sight.

"What was that?" he asked Hermione."Where did it come from?"

Hermione looked around as well. "Where did what come from?" she asked. "What did you see?"

"Nothing. Didn't you hear the voice?"

But just then the doors of the Great Hall opened and the other children and teachers flooded out. Professor Snape caught sight of the two Gryffindors standing in the hall and came right towards them with his robes billowing intimidatingly.

"Why weren't you at the feast, James?" he demanded.

"I'm Harry."

"Why weren't you at the feast, Harry?"

"We were at Nearly Headless Nick's deathday party," Harry explained.

"We thought that would be more educational," Hermione added and Harry nodded eagerly.

Snape however still looked incredulous.

"So you ..."

A horrible shriek interrupted them and then more and more followed.

Professor Snape turned away from them abruptly and ran up the stairs towards the source of the screams. Harry and Hermione exchanged a look and then followed a little more cautiously.

They needn't have worried, though, there was nothing dangerous in sight anymore. Only Mrs Norris hung stiff and motionless on the wall with an inscription that looked like it had been written in blood next to her: 'The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the Heir beware.'


	9. Chapter 9: The Writing on the Wall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Notes: Well, Harry's not likely to suspect Draco, ...

Chapter 9: The Writing on the Wall

 

The staff members gathered around the stiff cat and took her off the wall.

"My office, headmaster," Professor Lockhart offered somehow reminding Harry of Hagrid's boar-hound Fang when he was begging for a treat. "It's closest."

They sent the students on their way to the common rooms, but when Harry and Hermione moved towards the stairs Snape held them back.

"Not you, James," he said.

"I'm Harry."

"Not you, Harry. Headmaster, these two missed the feast, but were waiting outside when we left the Great Hall."

"We weren't waiting," Hermione protested. "We were on the way to the hall. Harry stopped because he thought he'd heard something strange."

That didn't seem to be a good excuse. The teachers made them both come along to Professor Lockhart’s office where Professor Dumbledore examined Mrs Norris and then announced that she was still alive, but petrified and that Professor Sprout's mandrakes would be able to cure her once they were fully grown. Then they interrogated Harry and Hermione.

Unfortunately their answers didn't seem to please them. They refused to believe that Harry had heard the words 'Let me kill!' when Hermione hadn't heard anything at all. Mr. Filch accused them both of lying.

"Oh, I doubt that, Argus," Dumbledore said lightly. "I think it is much more likely that Harry did hear some sound that Hermione didn't, or maybe didn't assign any importance to, and now after the frightening discovery of Mrs Norris on that wall his imagination is running away with him."

"You saw the message, headmaster!" Mr. Filch argued. "The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. And Harry saw my Quickspell letter. He knows I'm a Squib!"

"What's a Squib? What is Quickspell?" Harry asked, but he got no answers. Instead he and Hermione were sent to their common room.

So Harry asked Ron instead.

"Why, a Squib is a child of wizards that doesn't have any magic," Ron said. "There was a boy at the primary institute. His name was Andrew. They sent him to a Muggle secondary institute. He cried a lot when they told him."

"And Quickspell?" Harry asked.

"Maybe that's the secondary institute Mr. Filch went to?" Ron suggested with a shrug. "What is that Chamber of Secrets, though?"

"Oh, that is in my book!" Hermione exclaimed brightening. "Wait, I'll get it."

"Hogwarts a History?" Harry asked surprised.

Ron shrugged just as incredulously, but when Hermione returned she showed them the passage about the legendary chamber that Salazar Slytherin built to house some terrible monster.

"It's supposed to cleanse Hogwarts of Muggle born students," she repeated. "And only Slytherin's heir can control it."

"So some Slytherin must have set it loose," Ron declared. "Maybe Draco will know who."

But neither Draco nor any of their other Slytherin friends knew anything.

"There have been lots of searches of the dungeons," Draco told them. "But nothing has ever been found. They say it must be near the common room. So the heir can get to it easily, you know."

"Didn't they find anything odd at all?" Hermione asked. "Nobody behaving strangely? Nobody saying or doing nasty things to children from Muggle institutes?"

"Not that ..." Draco began, but Vincent interrupted him with a sudden yelp.

"That house-elf remember? The one that tried to make Harry run away!"

"But he can't be Slytherin's heir," Ron argued. "That has to be a wizard."

"He's working for the heir of course," Draco said. "So he doesn't have to show his own face. That way the students he targets can't tell on him if they go to the teachers."

"But Dobby isn't a Hogwarts elf," Hermione pointed out. "And in order to open the chamber and control the monster the heir would have to get into the castle himself."

"Lucius Malfoy is a school governor, Hagrid said," Ron pointed out. "So maybe he can come here when he likes."

"Maybe he has a child in the institute now," Draco suggested. "And sent Dobby to that child to make contact."

"We don't even know for sure that Dobby belongs to Lucius Malfoy," Hermione said. "Hagrid only thought that his elf might be called that and he didn't sound very sure. He might have been mistaken. Dobby could belong to anyone."

"I want to see the Chamber," Harry said. "Can't we go look for it ourselves?"

Draco, Vincent and Gregory looked horrified.

"We can't let you into the common room!" Gregory gasped. "You're Gryffindors. They'd kill us!"

"Not really," Draco amended hastily. "But they would probably beat us up or hex us. Gregory and Vincent are strong, but they can't beat the whole house."

"What if we dress up as Slytherins?" Ron suggested. "You could lend us your spare robes."

"They'd still recognise our faces," Hermione said. "Or maybe not recognise them when they know all their own second years by sight."

"We could say we're first years," Ron suggested, but neither Draco nor Hermione thought that that would work and they were the smart ones.

So Harry gave up on his idea.

Over the next few days he grew pretty annoyed, though. The whole institute was talking about the Chamber of Secrets and the attack on Mrs Norris and that Harry had been questioned by the teachers. People whispered behind his back, Justin refused to talk with him and finally even Colin reported that one of his classmates had said that Harry was the heir of Slytherin.

"I'm a Gryffindor!" Harry protested, but apparently that wasn't good enough to prove his innocence.

That was when Hermione thought of using polyjuice potion to make them look like Gregory and Vincent.

"We'll have to find another Slytherin for me to turn into, though," she added. "We can't use Draco, because we need a real Slytherin to lead us. It would be suspicious if three second year Slytherins can't find their own dorm."


	10. Chapter 10: The Rouge Bludger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Notes: Yes, I know the potions ingredients theft is a chapter too early, but it didn't make sense to me that they'd start brewing without knowing where they'd get some of the ingredients from.

Chapter 10: The Rouge Bludger

 

There was only one downside to Hermione's plan. The recipe for the potion was in a restricted book and they weren't old enough to get permission to read those.

"We'll tell Professor Snape that we're just curious because he mentioned it in class. We just want to have a look at the book," Hermione said.

"But that's a lie," Harry reminded her. "A lie to a teacher. If we get caught nobody will ever believe a word we say anymore!"

"Even better," Hermione said ignoring Harry. "You ask him, Draco. You're in his house and good in Potions. He's sure to believe you're interested."

But either Hermione had overestimated Draco's persuasive skills, or underestimated Professor Snape's cleverness. Draco returned not only without the book, but also without the request form he'd brought the Professor to sign.

"He threw it into the fire," he reported. "And asked me whether he looked like Lockhart to me. But he didn't take points or anything. I think it amused him."

"But ... he doesn't look at all like Lockhart," Harry said confused.

"Maybe he meant we ought to have asked Lockhart for the book?" Ron suggested.

"But it's a Potions book," Gregory said. "Lockhart teaches Defence Against the Dark Arts. That has nothing to do with Potions."

"Yes, it does. There are dark arts potions as well as spells," Hermione said. "And in Gadding with Ghouls Professor Lockhart used half a page to describe slow-acting poisons. It's rather confusing, though. Probably too advanced for us."

Harry hadn't read Gadding with Ghouls yet. He didn't like Professor Lockhart's books all that much. Apparently the others didn't have anything to say about it either because for a while none of them spoke.

"That's it!" Hermione exclaimed suddenly. "We'll ask Professor Lockhart for the book, because we think it'll help us understand that bit in Gadding with Ghouls!"

"We do?" asked Vincent.

"Well, no," Hermione admitted. "It probably has nothing to do with slow acting poisons, but it's the best excuse I can think of. Maybe Professor Lockhart hasn't read it."

"We'll be caught lying to a teacher, just like Harry said," Ron worried, but none of them could think of any other way to get the book so Hermione tried it anyway.

To their surprise it worked, though they soon found that merely getting the book was far from the hardest part of their plan. The recipe was awfully complicated and they needed several ingredients that could only be found in one place in the institute: Professor Snape's office.

After a long discussion and much poring over their Potions book they came up with a plan, though. Harry and Ron deliberately messed up their potion in the next lesson causing it to emit blinding smoke.

They'd meant for it to happen right when Professor Snape bent over their cauldron so he'd be unable to see Draco slip into his office to steal the ingredients, but that part didn't work out. Instead they only blinded themselves, but they acted very panicked and Hermione faked an attack of hysterics over her friends' sudden blindness. So Snape, who also had to brew the antidote, had very little attention to spare for his other students and Draco accomplished his task safely.

"In hindsight," Hermione said afterwards. "It's lucky that we didn't blind Professor Snape. Just imagine if he'd found out we'd done it on purpose! And who'd have brewed the antidote if he hadn't been able to see what he was doing?"

"Professor Lockhart most likely," Ron said. "He's always volunteering to do everything."

"Madam Pomfrey or Professor Sprout," Draco insisted. "Their fields are much more closely related to Potions. I'm sure they'd have known where to find the recipe, if they don't know it by heart like Professor Snape does."

"He could just have told them how to brew it anyway," Hermione pointed out.

"See," said Ron. "It would have been no problem at all."

Where to brew the polyjuice potion however was one. They couldn't leave it standing around in a common room or dorm, because their fellow students would be curious about the 'Potions project' and might upset the cauldron accidentally.

After several long discussions Hermione decided on Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, a girls' toilet nobody ever used, because Myrtle haunted it. This had two downsides, though. The first was that it was right across from the place where Mrs Norris had been found. The spooky inscription about the Chamber of Secrets was still there and Mr. Filch spent a lot of time scrubbing at it or simply patrolling that corridor. Apparently he was hoping that Slytherin's monster would come back so he could give it detention.

The other downside was that most of them were boys and while they soon learned how to avoid being caught by Mr. Filch, Percival, a Gryffindor prefect caught Harry and Ron coming out on one occasion and they got an awful scolding.

All Hermione's assurances that she'd only shown them in after checking that there was nobody but Myrtle in there availed them nothing. Professor McGonagall declared that there was no excuse for entering a bathroom of the opposite sex under any circumstances. If Hermione wanted to introduce boys to Moaning Myrtle she ought to ask the ghost to float outside.

As if that hadn't been enough trouble for one week somebody had sabotaged one of the bludgers for the first Quiddich match of the season so that it kept attacking Harry until it finally broke his arm causing Gryffindor to lose the match.

Professor Lockhart, helpful as usual, made the broken bone disappear ... along with all the other bones in Harry's right arm, which landed Harry in the hospital wing overnight while his bones grew back.

In the middle of that night he woke up to find Dobby by his bedside and the strange elf openly admitted to being the one who'd hexed the bludger so Harry would be sent to some place called St. Mungo's and be out of reach of Slytherin's monster.

"Oh Master Harry doesn't know what he means to us! And especially to poor Dobby! But Dobby will protect Master Harry! Dobby's love died to save Master Harry. Her sacrifice must not be in vain!"

Before Harry could ask what he was talking about, who had died to save him and why, the door opened and Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall floated the stiff form of Colin into the room.

Harry sat up in bed and watched in wide eyed horror.

"What happened?" he asked.

"Don't worry, Harry," Dumbledore said kindly. "Your young friend isn't dead. He's been petrified, just like Mrs Norris. As soon as Professor Sprout's mandrakes are fully mature we will be able to cure them both."


	11. Chapter 11: The Duelling Club

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Notes: Since Harry and Draco get along so well it's unlikely Professor Snape would choose them for a disastrous duelling presentation ... so ...

Chapter 11: The Duelling Club

 

Harry's new bones were fully grown the next morning, though it took a few days before he felt he could use his arm as well as before the attack by Dobby's bludger.

He was however fully restored by the time the duelling club was announced.

"I'm surprised the headmaster gave permission for something so dangerous!" Hermione gasped when she saw the notice.

"It must be safe, if the institute allows it," Harry said. "Do you think we should go?"

"Oh yes!" Ron exclaimed. "It'll be so cool!"

Hermione didn't quite agree that it was cool, but admitted that she was curious.

"It might be useful," Draco observed when they discussed it with their Slytherin friends. "You know, if the heir of Slytherin attacks again and we happen to see him."

"Do you really think any of us can out-duel someone who can petrify people and has a pet monster?" Hermione said doubtfully.

"Not in a fair duel," Draco conceded. "But we might get him from behind while he's sneaking up on someone. That's not cheating. It's rescuing someone."

"Well, let's see how the first meeting goes," Hermione decided. "If it seems dangerous we stop going after that."

"Or if it's boring," added Ron.

"It can't be boring. It's real fighting!" Gregory said, but he had to take that back when they realised that Professor Lockhart was in charge of the club.

Lockhart hadn't done anything at all interesting in class since the pixie disaster.

At least Professor Snape provided some entertainment by blasting Professor Lockhart into the wall with a disarming spell and matching up pairs that didn't get along. That stopped being all that much fun when Harry got hit with a painful hex he didn't even know, Ron's wand once again backfired and blasted him into Vincent and Hermione's partner, Millicent, actually attacked her with her fists.

Luckily Professor Snape once again proved himself master of the situation and cancelled all the hexes with a single spell.

Professor Lockhart then decided on another demonstration and called on Justin and his partner Theodore to show them how to block curses.

Poor Justin didn't look happy when the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor showed him a complicated wriggling movement and dropped his wand in the process. Harry felt sorry for him. He couldn't imagine how the spell was supposed to be cast after that instruction either.

Theodore was a lot luckier. He got whispered instructions from Professor Snape.

"Oh, that'll be good," Draco predicted giggling.

"But poor Justin," Harry said. "He doesn't have a fair chance."

"Professor Snape won't let him get seriously hurt," Draco assured him. "He wouldn't do anything to harm the institute."

Of course not. No teacher would do anything like that, but that hex had hurt anyway.

"Serpensortia!" Theodore shouted and a big black snake flew at Justin.

He wasn't nearly as big as the boa constrictor Harry had once met at the zoo, but was a lot scarier because he was angry after being flung through the air.

Justin shrieked and scrambled backwards causing the snake to rise cursing and threatening to bite him.

"Don't hurt him!" Harry shouted. "It's not his fault!"

The snake stopped cursing and tilted his head towards Harry.

"Just calm down. It won't happen again," Harry promised and the snake lowered himself back to the floor just before Professor Snape vanished him.

But the students around Harry were still backing away and shrieking. Justin's fellow Hufflepuffs surrounded their friend and pulled him out of the Great Hall hastily while Harry's own friends merely stared at him.

"What's wrong?" Harry asked them.

"You're a Parselmouth!" Draco gasped.

"A what?"

Their explanation left Harry more confused than before. Ron appeared to be horrified by Harry's newly discovered talent, while Hermione worried about the connection with Salazar Slytherin.

"It might make people think that you're Slytherin's heir," she explained.

His Slytherin friends on the other hand seemed torn between admiration and fear.

"But it is a really cool talent," Vincent assured him. "I wish I had a real Slytherin talent."

"I'm a Gryffindor, not a Slytherin," Harry pointed out. "I can't be Slytherin's heir."

But the other students didn't see it that way. Wherever Harry went over the next days he heard people whispering about him and what he might do to them. Even Justin who really ought to have remembered that Harry was from a Muggle institute himself was avoiding him.

Harry wanted to explain the snake-incident to Justin in Herbology, but unfortunately it was cancelled due to bad weather.

At Hermione's recommendation Harry went to find Justin anyway. He didn't need a lesson to talk to him after all. But all he found were more students gossiping about him and theorising about how he could tell what institutes children had come from.

"Well, it isn't that hard, is it?" he heard Ernie from Hufflepuff tell his friends in the library. "That first year, Colin, was in his own house and newly transferred this year. He probably asked a lot of questions about magical stuff. And Justin is in his Herbology group. I bet he told him something about his primary institute."

"He only needs to remember who was at the wizarding primary institute when he was," Hannah corrected. "That's even easier."

"But Harry wasn't at the wizarding primary institute at all," Susan argued.

"Yeah, but only because he was removed from the nursery institute after the attack by You-Know-Who," Ernie said. "I bet he's trying to get revenge for that now."

Harry stalked out of the library fuming. How dared Ernie imply that he hadn't liked his primary institute!

On the way back to Gryffindor tower he collided with Hagrid who was in almost as bad a mood as Harry himself. Apparently some horrid magical monster was attacking his chickens.

Harry commiserated with him for a little while and then they each went their separate ways, Hagrid to the headmaster's office and Harry on to Gryffindor tower to fetch his books for the next lesson.

He turned into another corridor and ... screamed in fright. There, on the floor, lay poor Justin, all petrified and next to him, grey and motionless, floated Nearly Headless Nick! Slytherin's monster had struck again.

For a moment Harry stood frozen with shock, then he remembered what he had to do. Professor McGonagall's classroom was only just around the corner.

Harry reached it in what was probably record time, threw open the door without knocking and ran to the teacher's desk.

"Professor! Professor!"

"Aww," mocked some student Harry didn't recognise. "It's wee little Harry!"

"Did the poor baby have a nightmare?" another laughed.

"Aw, run to nursey, baby!"

"Professor, Professor!" somebody aped. "How adorable!"

But Harry didn't even need to remind himself that good children ignore insults. He couldn't even find words to explain what he'd seen. So he simply grabbed hold of the teacher's arm and pulled urgently.

"Professor! Professor! Come quick!"

"Now, Harry," Professor McGonagall began. "What in the world has gotten into you? You can't just ..."

But at that moment Peeves' shrill shout rang through the corridors: "Attack! Another attack! Run for your lives!"

"That!" Harry shouted almost as shrilly, though a lot less coherently. "Come! Come!"

And finally the Professor got up and let him lead her to the site of the attack.


	12. Chapter 12: The Polyjuice Potion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Notes: So what to do with the polyjuice potion ...

Chapter 12: The Polyjuice Potion

 

Professor McGonagall took Harry straight to a very strange office full of all sorts of little metal devices and told him to wait there. In one corner sat the Sorting Hat and next to the door was a perch with a very ugly old bird on it.

Harry cautiously retreated to the other side of the room so the large bird couldn't peck or scratch him. At least he didn't look like he could fly anymore so this distance had to be safe.

Indeed the bird only gave Harry one short glance, shuddered a little and then burst into flames.

Harry screamed.

A moment later Professor Dumbledore entered.

"The ... the ... bird ..." Harry stuttered pointing at the pile of ashes under the perch.

"Ah," said the headmaster. "Finally. Oh, did it scare you? I suppose it would after what you've just witnessed. There's no cause for alarm, though. Fawkes is a phoenix, you see. Whenever he reaches a certain age he bursts into flames and is then reborn from the ashes, once again young and full of energy. But never mind my bird, Harry. Professor McGonagall tells me that you found Justin and Nick?"

Harry nodded still feeling unable to talk sensibly. Luckily before he had to Hagrid burst in swinging his dead rooster and assuring Dumbledore that Harry couldn't possibly have been the attacker.

The teachers were thinking it was him as well? Was this another of Dobby's plots to get him out of the institute? Was he trying to send him to jail this time?

"I didn't," he pleaded. "Oh no, I didn't!"

"Of course not," the headmaster said sharply and Harry wondered whether he meant that he believed that Harry was innocent or that being guilty of course Harry would deny it.

"Hagrid, I do not believe that Harry can petrify anyone. He is much too young to master such complicated magic."

"You don't? Well, I'll be waiting outside then."

"Too young?" Harry asked beginning to feel a little more hopeful.

"Yes, I'd be very surprised if anyone under sixteen could perform such a spell and so far you have ... well never shown any extraordinary talent in any of your classes."

Harry looked down at his shoes. Of course being good in school wasn't important, and even failing would be a lot better than going to jail, but to have one's headmaster point out one's inferior performance was still embarrassing.

"I'm sorry, headmaster."

"Now, now, there is no need to apologise. Your abilities are perfectly normal for your age. No teacher has the right to expect more than that of you. In order to petrify people, however, you would have to be able to cast NEWT-level spells which, judging from your performance so far, you won't be until you actually reach the proper age to start studying them. I need you to tell me how you found your friends Justin and Nick, though. As thoroughly as possible. Anything you saw or heard might help us find the real perpetrator."

"Well, I ... I met Hagrid like he already said and we talked a little. Then I went on and ..."

"Wait! Slow down a little. Where were you coming from when you met Hagrid?"

"I was coming from the library. Hagrid came up from the entrance hall. He said he was going to see you, because of some dead chickens. I was going to the common room to get my school-bag."

"Alright, and after you talked you went to the common room just like you'd originally intended to?"

"I wanted to go to the common room, but I didn't get there, because I found ... found ..."

"Justin and Nick?"

Harry nodded.

"What did you see and hear? Was there anything else unusual?"

"I didn't hear anything. And it was dark. The candles had gone out. So I didn't see much. only that ... that they were ... and I thought I must tell an adult. Professor McGonagall's classroom was closest."

"And there is nothing else you can tell me? Nothing at all strange or suspicious?"

Harry thought about that. He'd already told Professor Dumbledore about the voice and the headmaster hadn't believed him, but ...

"There's this house-elf called Dobby. We think he is working for the Heir of Slytherin."

"Dobby?" the headmaster said sounding alarmed.

"Hermione says he is not a Hogwarts elf. He doesn't wear a uniform towel. Hagrid says maybe he belongs to Lucius Malfoy, but he isn't at all sure. Dobby came and said I should run away from the institute. I said no and he said it is dangerous here and hexed the bludger to break my arm. Hermione says maybe the heir sent him to make children from Muggle institutes go away. So they don't see the heir and can't tell you who he is."

"Strange," said the headmaster. "We can take care of this Dobby, though. I will report him to the Ministry of Magic's department for the control of magical creatures. They keep records on all the house-elves in the country and have the proper authority to deal with the matter. Hopefully Dobby will be able to tell them who ordered him to do this."

After that Harry almost gave up on the idea of sneaking into the Slytherin common room, but Hermione insisted on going through with it.

"The potion was so hard to brew," she said. "And we don't know whether Dobby really can give away the heir. And Christmas will be the perfect opportunity to try the potion. I managed to get a hair off Millicent's robes when we had our fight in the duelling club, so we have everything we need. Let's at least give it a try!"

So after breakfast on Christmas Day when everybody else was busy playing with their new gifts Harry and his friends once again met up in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.

"The coast is clear," Draco reported. "Millicent has gone outside to play with her new Fanged Frisbee. Once you have transformed. Vincent and Gregory will go after her and join the game to make sure it continues for at least an hour."

"Alright," Hermione said. "Let's do it."

She ladled out three beakers full of the potion and Gregory and Vincent each put one of their hairs into one. Harry and Ron drank the potions while Hermione was still unpacking Millicent's carefully stored away hair.

"Ooooh!" Gregory exclaimed when Harry turned into his perfect double. "I have a twin!"

Harry laughed, but had some trouble with his suddenly too tight shoes and robes. And why couldn't he see properly?

"Why really, Harry," Hermione said slightly amused. "You have to take off your glasses. Gregory doesn't need any."

Harry laughed and did ... and for the first time he could remember saw the world clearly without thin metal frames at the edges.

"Get on with it, Hermione!" Ron urged. "We only have an hour and our time is running."

"Right," Hermione said and gulped down the potion.

But something was wrong. Instead of growing into Millicent's larger form Hermione started sprouting hair all over her body, her eyes turned yellow with slitted pupils and long thin whiskers sprang fourth from her face.

"Oh no!" she wailed in a strangely high-pitched voice. "It was a cat's hair!"

"Millicent has a cat that she bought with her transfer money," Draco supplied. "Her name's Penelope."

Hermione didn't care what the cat's name was, though. She sobbed pitifully. Myrtle gleefully predicted what horrors her fellow students would put her through. The boys went almost frantic with worry.

What should they do?

"We'll have to take her to the hospital wing," Vincent stated. "We'll need an adult to fix her."

"But then we'll have to tell them what we brewed," Ron said. "And we shouldn't even have had the recipe for the potion."

"Nonsense," Draco stated. "The potion wears off after an hour. We'll just stay in here until then and play exploding snap. Then you all turn back and we go out and pretend nothing ever happened."

Feeling reassured they settled down on the dirty cracked tiles of the bathroom floor and unpacked Gregory's brand new pack of exploding snap cards.

It was a strange game, though. Harry and Ron found that it was much harder to play when one had somebody else's hands and Hermione never snapped up a single card at all, but at least they had something to distract them while they waited.


	13. Chapter 13: The Very Secret Diary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Notes: Some consequences ...

Chapter 13: The Very Secret Diary

 

They waited for an hour and a half before they finally accepted that Hermione would not turn back as easily as Harry and Ron and took her to Madam Pomfrey past gawking, pointing and laughing institute mates.

The nurse was very angry and demanded an exact explanation what they had done before she even allowed Hermione to get into a bed behind a screen so other patients and visitors coming in couldn't see her. Then she went to the headmaster and returned with Professor Snape.

"Didn't I tell you that you are too young to read restricted books?" the Potions master demanded of Draco, Vincent and Gregory. "Now look what you have done just because you can't ever listen to your elders and betters. So you snuck into the library and stole the book?"

Harry felt for his friends. Poor Draco couldn't meet his head of house's eyes, Vincent was shaking and Gregory even started to cry.

"You think your crocodile tears are going to ..."

"But Professor, they didn't do it!" Harry shouted.

"Oh really, James? I suppose it was Merlin's ghost then?"

"I'm Harry," Harry pointed out, but this time Professor Snape did not correct his statement. He merely turned back to the Slytherins as if to continue to berate them.

"It was us," Harry continued hastily. "We asked Professor Lockhart and he signed the permission slip. Nobody stole anything."

Except the ingredients Draco had taken from Professor Snape's own office, but apparently the professor had forgotten all about those.

"Lockhart!" he exclaimed. "Again? Is there no mistake too stupid for that imbecile? But just you wait until Albus hears about this!"

Harry vaguely wondered who Albus was, but at least the professor was no longer blaming his friends.

Even Professor Snape's brewing skills couldn't restore Hermione overnight however and so Harry and Ron had to get by without her for several days. They visited her every evening to bring her her assignments, show her what they'd learned and reassure her that there hadn't been another attack.

"But they all still think it's me," Harry said morosely one evening. "Peeves even made up a song about it."

"Draco wasn't in Potions today," Ron interrupted hastily to distract him. "Gregory said Professor Snape, the headmaster and an auror came into their Transfigurations lesson and took him away. Nobody knows where or why, but he hasn't been seen since."

And as if that wasn't worrying enough on the way back to Gryffindor tower they overheard Mr. Filch have another fit of anger. Their curiosity aroused, they snuck closer cautiously and discovered that it was only Myrtle flooding her bathroom and the corridor outside it again.

"We must go and tell her Hermione will be fine soon," Harry realised. "It will cheer her up."

So they slipped into the bathroom as soon as the caretaker had left the corridor. But Moaning Myrtle wasn't interested in Hermione's fate in the least. Somebody had thrown a book through her head and she was not ready to give up crying over that.

Harry went and picked up the thoroughly soaked book. It was a very old-fashioned diary apparently belonging to somebody called T. M. Riddle.

Neither of the boys had ever heard such a strange first name before, but the diary itself was even more interesting.

"Just look at this: It says school holidays. I wonder what that is."

"Maybe a holiday to celebrate the existence of schools?" Harry suggested.

"Or maybe everywhere except school has a day off?" Ron said. "Or maybe only the schools do?"

"It's more than one day!" Harry discovered. "Look, this one covers almost the whole summer! If those were all days off, all the companies would die and nobody could be productive anymore."

"Then maybe it's just one of those holidays like Valentines day, where you put up decorations and go on working normally," Ron decided. "That would make sense, wouldn't it?"

"Yes, that must be it," Harry agreed. "Who do you think the old book belongs to?"

"We'll have to turn it in," Ron said. "So the teachers can return it to its owner."

"But he threw it into the toilet," Harry argued. "He didn't want it anymore."

"She," Ron corrected. "It's a girls' bathroom. T. M. Riddle must be a girl."

In any case they had to dry the book before they could do anything else with it. That would be a good opportunity to practise drying charms.

"And then we have to keep it until we can show Hermione," Harry added. "She loves old books. She'll want to see this one."

However when Draco returned in the middle of dinner that evening Harry forgot all about the now dry book in his schoolbag.

"They took me to the Ministry," Draco told them excitedly. "And asked me a whole lot of questions until I got all confused. I don't remember them all, but most were about Dobby. He was there, too. In handcuffs and a magical blocker and everything."

"Oh, so they arrested him?" Ron asked eagerly. "Are they sending him to Azkaban?"

"I suppose so, but they didn't say. They just wanted to know whether I knew him and he knew me and I told them about the time I saw him and what you told me he'd said to you. But they kept asking whether I was sure that I'd only seen him that once and he insisted he'd never seen me at all. Then they made a lot of dark hints about what happens to bad elves who lie to the ministry and he started to wail so much it made my ears hurt and swore that he hadn't been working for anyone and had just wanted to save Harry from the monster, because his love had died to protect him from You-Know-Who."

"His love?" Harry asked. Dobby had said something similar in the hospital wing, too. "Did he mean my mother?"

"I don't know," Ron said. "But I think some of the nurses died in the attack, too. The nurses are all house-elves, so one could have been his girlfriend."

"Oh, poor Dobby!" Harry exclaimed. He knew from stories they'd been told at the primary institute that one's girlfriend dying was supposed to be a very horrible thing.

"Anyway, then they asked him what Slytherin's monster is, but he said he didn't know. He only knew that it was loose from his master and that it would kill all the children from Muggle institutes. So when he'd heard that, Dobby said, he'd decided that he had to rescue Harry or his love would have died in vain. Then they discussed how his master could have known, but then another auror came in and said they'd asked Mr. Malfoy and he'd said that he's a school governor and that's why he was informed of the attacks. And then they remembered that I was still there and ordered Auror Black to take me back here and he did. But he also gave me some filibusters' firecrackers, which he wasn't supposed to do. So don't tell anybody or he'll get in trouble and I don't want that. He was really nice."

A few days later Hermione was released from the hospital wing which made them all feel much better. In fact the whole school seemed happier these days as there hadn't been any new attacks in so long. Only Professor Lockhart still looked very quiet and depressed.

"They revoked his right to sign permission slips," Percival the prefect told them when somebody remarked on his unusual behaviour. "Because you can't really blame children for not knowing how dangerous a book can be, but a teacher ought to know."

By Valentine's day Professor Lockhart seemed to have recovered, though, and announced that instead of just decorating the Great Hall in pink and serving heart shaped candy for dessert the institute would have a huge party. This proved to be very annoying.

The very worst part for Harry was being chased by a dwarf dressed up as a cupid who had to sing a love poem to him. Harry's schoolbag burst in his desperate attempt to escape resulting in the dwarf catching up with him and delivering the awful poem in the middle of the corridor where everybody could see and hear.

The accident also had a good side, though. As he picked up his spilled possessions Harry rediscovered the old diary. Not wanting to forget about it again before he'd shown it to Hermione he decided to get that done right away. While Professor Flitwick was busy explaining a new charm on the other side of the room he opened the book to the first page and hastily scribbled:  
Hermione! Somebody threw this old book into Myrtle's toilet. Isn't it cool? Harry.

But before he could close the book and pass it to his friend the writing disappeared and new words showed up in its place:  
Hello Harry! I am Tom Riddle.

Harry stared at the words in disbelief and then hastily threw the book shut and slipped it into his pocket just in time as Professor Flitwick was on his way towards him.

That evening however he took it out again and had a very long talk with Tom Riddle who told him all about how the Chamber of Secrets had been opened once before during his own school days when there'd still been long holidays during which children had gone to live with their parents! Back then a girl had even been killed, but luckily Tom had been able to capture the culprit. He drew Harry into his memory and showed him how he caught a boy called Rubeus, and how the monster, a huge spider, had escaped.


	14. Chapter 14: Cornelius Fudge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Notes: Harry doesn't want to hand Tom in to the teachers ...

Chapter 14: Cornelius Fudge

 

"We have to tell the teachers," Hermione said when Harry told his friends what Tom had shown him.

"But the headmaster was there," Harry said. "He already knows."

"Maybe he doesn't know it's a spider," Ron said with a shudder. "And we have to hand in the book."

"It belongs to Tom," Harry told him. "And he said I could keep it. He likes talking with me."

"Then let's at least ask Hagrid," Hermione suggested. "Maybe he remembers something more about the monster."

"Something he'll only remember when we ask him, even though the headmaster surely has asked already?" Draco said doubtfully.

"It's really rude to question an adult like that," Harry said. "And there hasn't been an attack in so long. Maybe it's over because they caught Dobby."

"Alright," said Hermione. "But if there is another attack we go and show Tom's book to Professor McGonagall."

But everything remained quiet and even Peeves grew tired of his nasty song and stopped singing it.

A few days before the Easter holiday and feast the second years were handed little brochures and forms to choose electives for their third year.

"This is a big responsibility," Professor McGonagall told them. "It is the first time in your lives that you have to make a decision about your future. It is meant to prepare you for choosing your job when you leave the institute. So read everything thoroughly, consider all your options and talents. Your teachers and prefects are there to help you should you want further advice."

Harry felt far ahead of the rest of the class. He'd already made a decision once before: The headmaster of his primary institute had offered him the choice between Hogwarts and Smeltings secondary institute and Harry had chosen Hogwarts.

Once they actually started reading the brochures, though, he soon grew a lot less confident. This was not a simple choice between two options. There were five subjects and they could choose several, but ought not to take more than they could handle.

"Muggle Studies is very useful," Percival recommended when they asked him.

"Professor Snape said Muggle Studies is useless unless we want to work as Muggle liasons or obliviators," Draco reported when they met up with their Slytherin friends later that day. "And you don't need it at all, because you are from a Muggle institute. You already know what they are like."

Professor Snape also said that Divination was useless unless you actually had the talent of prophecy.

"So how do we tell if we do?" Ron asked.

"I don't know," Draco said. "I'm not taking Care for Magical Creatures either. That's dangerous."

"But it's mostly practical work," Hermione said. "So it won't have a big load of homework."

"I heard that Divination is really easy," Gregory added. "So I'm taking it anyway. I've already got too much homework now."

"If it's easy it can't hurt to give it a try," Hermione decided and Ron made a cross on his form as well, so Harry did too. He was used to sitting next to them in class after all. It would feel strange not to have the same subjects.

In the end Hermione chose everything and Ron and Harry took only Divination and Care for Magical Creatures.

Draco shook his head at them and picked Arithmancy and Ancient Runes. Gregory and Vincent both decided to join them in Care for Magical Creatures, though and after eyeing Draco's time intensive choices thoughtfully for a long time Vincent decided on Muggle Studies as his second elective.

"Even if I don't decide to work with Muggles, it will probably be interesting," he said. "And I know Arithmancy and Runes are way too difficult."

Draco shrugged. "Suit yourself. I'll just sit next to Hermione then."

When they returned to their dorm after the feast the Gryffindor boys found that Harry's stuff had been dug through and strewn around the room ... and Tom's diary was gone.

Harry searched everywhere frantically. Tom had become such a dear friend in the short time he'd had him!

He rushed to Professor McGonagall who seemed rather annoyed and told him to return in the morning.

"But the game against Hufflepuff!" Harry exclaimed.

"Well, if the book isn't so important that you forget all about the game, then I suppose it can wait until after the game," she said and closed her door in his face.

So the next morning Harry went downstairs without a pep talk from Tom. At least he had his other friends beside him and the weather was good. It would be a nice game, too.

"Let me rip! Let me tear!"

"No!" Harry hissed causing Ron to jump.

"Harry?" Hermione asked slowly.

"It was that voice again," Harry said. "Didn't you hear it?"

"But why did you speak Parsel?" Draco asked.

"I did?" He hadn't noticed, but then he never did. It always sounded just like English to him.

"Of course!" Hermione exclaimed. "I have to go to the library!"

And now he was missing two friends at the game! Though of course, Tom being stuck in his book couldn't have come out to watch Harry play even if he hadn't been stolen.

A little disappointed by Hermione's desertion Harry got onto his broom and was just about to push off when Professor McGonagall arrived to announce that the game was cancelled and they were all to return to their common rooms immediately.

Feeling very frightened Harry did so and sat in the common room with Ron, Neville, Dean and Seamus as Hermione was nowhere to be found.


	15. Chapter 15: Aragog

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Notes: This Harry wouldn't just sneak out to see Hagrid, so how does he learn about Aragog?

Chapter 15: Aragog

 

"There has been another attack," Professor McGonagall informed the frightened Gryffindors "Hermione number two and Penelope number four have been found petrified near the library. Have any of you seen anything?"

Harry raised his hand.

"Yes Harry?"

"I heard that voice again. The one the headmaster said I imagined. I heard it really clearly, but my friends said they couldn't hear anything and then Hermione shouted that she had to go to the library."

"Did she say that she was meeting Penelope there?" Professor McGonagall prompted. "Do you know why they might have stopped just outside the library?"

"No," Harry said "I don't know any Penelope. Well, except Millicent's cat ... and I don't really know her either. Draco does, though."

"Draco knows Penelope number four?" Professor McGonagall asked sounding a little puzzled.

"No Professor, Draco knows Millicent's cat."

"How about the rest of you?"

All the fifth years and most of the prefects knew Penelope. Apparently she was a fifth year and prefect in Ravenclaw. No connection with Hermione could be found, though.

"What about this," Professor McGonagall held out a small mirror first to Hermione's dorm mates and then to Harry and Ron. "Do you recognise it? Does it belong to Hermione?"

They all shook their heads.

"Hermione doesn't wear make-up yet," Lavender volunteered. "I don't think she knows what to do with a mirror like that. When she wants to check her hair she uses the big one in the bathroom."

The professor returned the mirror to her pocket. "Well, I suppose it must be Penelope's then. It was found on the floor next to the poor girls. Is there anything else you can tell me? Any theories, ideas or suspicions?"

"Why don't you chuck out all the Slytherins?" a boy called Lee suggested. "It must be one of them."

Harry tentatively raised his hand.

"Yes, Harry?"

"I know something, but it's probably wrong and the headmaster probably knows anyway ... " Harry trailed off hopefully.

"And what is that something?" Professor McGonagall demanded.

"Um ... can I tell you alone? In your office I mean? I don't want everybody to think H ... that it's true, I mean. Because it's probably wrong. You know?"

Professor McGonagall sighed. "Very well. Maybe that is a good idea. We don't want to start any rumours that might cause a panic. Is there anybody else that wants to tell me something here in front of the whole house? ... No? Then is there anybody other than Harry who wants to talk to me in private?"

After once again reminding everybody to go straight to the nearest teacher if they noticed or remembered anything suspicious and telling them a whole lot of new safety rules Professor McGonagall finally led Harry to her office.

"Alright so what was it that you wanted to tell me, Harry?" she said once they'd sat down.

"You know the diary that was stolen from me?"

"Your diary? What does that have to do with the attacks?"

"Well," Harry bit his lip and confessed. "It isn't my diary. It belongs to Tom Riddle. But he said I can keep it and ..."

"Tom Riddle's diary?" Professor McGonagall had gone as white as a sheet. "The headmaster needs to hear this. Come along, Harry."

She hurried him straight to Professor Dumbledore's office where he confessed the whole story to them both.

"But Hagrid would not do anything like that on purpose!" Harry repeated one more time at the end.

"No," Dumbledore confirmed calmly. "And he hasn't done it, not even unintentionally."

"No?" Harry asked. Could Tom have lied to him?

"No," Dumbledore stated firmly. "Do you remember how I told you that a wizard would have to be at least sixteen to petrify somebody?"

Harry nodded.

"Hagrid was only thirteen when those unfortunate events happened and his magical abilities were rather below average. He could never have performed such a spell, nor was or is Aragog capable of petrifying people. Tearing them up and sucking them dry, yes, that would be in his nature, but not petrification."

"Aragog?"

"The giant spider you saw in the memory. Hagrid named him Aragog. He is an Acromantula, a magical race that usually lives in the South American rainforests and is very dangerous. Aragog and his family are one of the reasons the Forbidden Forest is forbidden. They are very dangerous, but they have nothing to do with Slytherin's monster, the Chamber of Secrets or any of the attacks, not the recent ones and not the ones on your unfortunate friend Myrtle and her contemporaries."

Harry found that speech a little hard to follow and didn't know the word contemporaries at all, but he did understand that Hagrid was innocent and had Professor Dumbledore just said ...

"Moaning Myrtle is the girl that was killed back then?"

"Yes, she is."

"And Hagrid and his monster were innocent?"

"Yes, they were and are still."

"Then who did it back then? Who killed Moaning Myrtle?"

"Alas, we never found out. The attacks stopped after Hagrid was expelled and Aragog fled from the castle and most people were satisfied that that had to prove their guilt. I tried to investigate further, but never found another clue. Hagrid told me that Aragog could sense the other monster and was terrified of it, but he refused to name it. But what about the diary, Harry? Where is it now?"

Harry told him about the theft.

"Hm ..." Dumbledore mused. "The thief must have been a Gryffindor then. Minerva, have Gryffindor tower searched and confiscate the book if you can find it."

Harry wanted to accompany his head of house back to the common room, but the headmaster stopped him.

"Wait a little, Harry. Let's talk a little while."

So Harry sat back down and accepted another lemon drop.

"What did you think of Tom? Did you like him?"

"Oh yes," said Harry. "He was really nice and he knows a lot of things. He told me all about the past when Hogwarts was just a school and not an institute and children had last names and really long holidays! They went home then and lived with their parents. But Tom couldn't tell me what that was like, because his parents were dead, too, just like mine. He had to go to an orphanage instead. That was just like an institute, but for some reason he didn't like it there. I don't understand why he didn't like his institute. Do you know?"

"Yes, I do and it's quite obvious once you do. You see, back then almost everybody had a family to go home to and Tom did not. So he felt left out."

"Oh, poor Tom."

"Yes, poor Tom. Perhaps he would have turned out better if he hadn't always had to live with the knowledge that he could never have what all his classmates took for granted."

Huh?

"You see, while Tom was always very charming when he wanted to be he was not ..."

"Albus!" one of the paintings in the office suddenly spoke up. "The minister is on his way here! They're about to arrest ..."

The fire in the headmaster's fireplace flared up suddenly and a man wearing a green bowler stepped out of it.

The Headmaster got up to greet the minister right away and after being ignored for a minute or two Harry was rushed out of the office with the promise that they'd continue their talk later.

But according to the new rules he wasn't allowed to go anywhere without an adult to protect him!

For a while he stood there unsure what to do, but the headmaster had told him to return to his common room and surely he wasn't supposed to stand around in a corridor unsupervised either. So he stated walking.

He hadn't gone very far when he saw an adult wizard. He didn't know the man, but he was an adult and he reminded him of Draco ... except that he looked like an adult and regal and powerful.

Harry walked up to him.

"Excuse me, Sir? The headmaster told me to return to my common room, but we are not supposed to go anywhere without an adult anymore. Could you take me there please?"

The wizard looked him up and down coldly.

"And why do you think that you deserve that, you miniature?"

"Deserve?"

"I do not think an escort is due to a mere child, do you?"

"Due?" Harry repeated stupidly. He'd thought the headmaster was confusing, but this wizard made no sense at all.

"You have legs, don't you? I'm sure if you actually try, you'll find you can use them without assistance. Now be off to your studies you lazy brat and stop expecting your betters to fix your pathetic problems."

"But the rules."

"Well, you should have thought about that sooner. But that's what you worthless children are like, isn't it? Just happily living into the day expecting everybody to bend over backwards to fix everything for you. Oh to be so happy and carefree!"

And with that he simply walked past Harry who was still trying to puzzle out what mistake he'd made and asked the strange wizard to fix.

Despite the lack of an adult escort he reached the tower unharmed and spent the rest of the day sitting there and watching the progress of the search for Tom's book while he waited for the call back to the headmaster's office. It never came, but he didn't learn why until they went down to the Great Hall for dinner.

"Haven't you heard yet?" Draco asked them excitedly. "The minister arrested Hagrid and the school governors suspended Professor Dumbledore!"

The only one that appeared to be happy at the news was Professor Lockhart.

"Maybe he is the Heir of Slytherin?" Ron suggested when Harry pointed that out.

"He's never a Slytherin!" Draco exclaimed offended.


	16. Chapter 16: The Chamber of Secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Notes: Okay, it's out of character for this Harry to manipulate Professor McGonagall, but do so he must in order to get to the hospital wing and find the parchment in Hermione's hand. - The other problems I had in this chapter are of JKR's making, though: McGonagall catching Harry and Ron wandering around on their own when they ought to be with a teacher at all times and sending them off to the hospital wing on their own? Hermione of all people tearing a page out of a library book? McGonagall giving the alarm sending the students back to their common rooms alone while the teachers head for their meeting with her? And then arriving there knowing that it's Ginny that has been abducted when she obviously hasn't checked for missing students yet? Clearly all these needed fixing, so:

Chapter 16: The Chamber of Secrets

 

On the whole Harry did not feel the absence of the headmaster much. Certainly not nearly as much as that of Hermione. Classes continued as normal despite a teacher leading them to their next class between the lessons.

One day Professor McGonagall reminded them that their exams were coming up. Of course exams weren't really important, but they gave them something to do now that they were no longer allowed to leave the common room in their spare time.

Three days before the exams would start - with the first years of course - Professor McGonagall had good news for them. Professor Sprout had declared the mandrakes to be ready to be slaughtered and was already cutting them up. That afternoon Professor Snape would brew the potion that would heal Hermione and the other petrified children.

"I'm sure I don't need to remind you that one of them will probably be able to identify their attacker and then you will all be safe again."

"Identify the attacker?" Harry repeated surprised. "How would they do that?"

"Why of course," Draco said. "Surely at least one of them will have seen who attacked them."

"Oh," made Harry. It had never occurred to him that they would be able to tell what had happened to them.

"Shouldn't Moaning Myrtle know, too then?" he realised as they were being led out of the great Hall and to their first lesson.

"I suppose," Ron said. "But we can't go and ask her."

Harry nodded. That was true and it remained so until later that morning when professor Lockhart decided that there was no danger anymore. After all Hagrid had been arrested and there hadn't been any more attacks since then. So he left the Gryffindor second years outside the History of Magic classroom without seeing them safely inside.

"Let's go see Myrtle," Ron suggested. "Professor Binns never notices when somebody's missing."

They slipped away around the corner, but ran straight into Professor McGonagall.

"We were going to ... to see ..." Ron trailed off.

She'd been so angry when Percival had seen them come out of Myrtle's bathroom, Harry remembered. How could they escape a serious punishment now?

"Well, you know Hermione ..." introduced us to Moaning Myrtle, was what Harry intended to say, but he didn't get that far.

Professor McGonagall assumed that they'd been sneaking off to the hospital wing to beg Madam Pomfrey to let them see Hermione and was so touched that she took them there herself.

Visiting a petrified person was pretty boring, though. Harry let his eyes wander around the room and over Hermione's stiff body looking for some sort of distraction.

"Madam Pomfrey? What is that in her hand?"

The nurse came over to take a look.

"It appears to be a piece of parchment," she diagnosed. "How strange that we overlooked it when she was first brought in."

It took her some time to pull it out of Hermione's tight grip. Then she flattened and examined it.

"It appears to be her research notes for Defense Against the Dark Arts," she said. "See, it says basilisk, snake, Parseltongue, spiders afraid, crowing of rooster fatal."

"What's a basilisk?" Harry asked.

"We never learned anything like that," Ron commented.

"It does seem a little advanced for second year," Madam Pomfrey agreed. "Though Professor Lockhart's judgement ... well, never mind. Maybe Hermione was looking up monsters that petrify people? The basilisk usually kills you by looking into your eyes, but if you do not meet his eyes directly you are petrified. It would be very unlikely that we'd be that lucky five times in a row ... though ..."

"Though?" Harry asked curiously.

"Well, Colin must have seen the monster through his camera," Madam Pomfrey explained. "That is not directly. Hermione and Penelope were found with a mirror next to them. They might have seen the monster's reflection. Justin could have seen it through Nick. A ghost is already dead, so Nick couldn't be killed. That leaves only the cat's survival unexplained. Why it says Parseltongue, though ..."

"Harry is a Parselmouth," Ron reminded her. "Maybe he could tell the basilisk to go away if it really is one?"

"Is a basilisk a snake?" Harry asked.

"Yes, a very big and deadly one," Madam Pomfrey said. "Little schoolboys definitely should not go near one. Not even if they think they can talk to it. Basilisks are very aggressive. They can't be reasoned with. Do you have any idea why Hermione would have written down that spiders are afraid of basilisks?"

Ron looked puzzled, but Harry remembered what Professor Dumbledore had told them.

"Aragog!" he exclaimed.

"Ara ... what?" the nurse asked.

"Hagrid's pet monster-spider," Harry explained. "Professor Dumbledore said he was terrified of Slytherin's monster and wouldn't say what it was."

"Crowing of rooster," the nurse continued. "That is obvious. The sound is deadly to the basilisk and Hagrid's roosters were killed at the time of the first attacks. That must have been the Heir of Slytherin in order to protect his monster. And then we have pipes. Do you have any idea what that could mean?"

They shook their heads.

"Well, never mind. I'll just show this to the teachers and see what they think of it. But you can't stay here alone."

So they left the hospital wing together with Madam Pomfrey and headed for Professor Mcgonagall's office. Long before they reached it however the professor's magically amplified voice rang through the school ordering all students to their common rooms and teachers to the teachers' lounge.

Madam Pomfrey took Harry and Ron straight to Gryffindor tower before taking Hermione's notes to the teachers' lounge.

They were the first to arrive there, but soon various teachers showed up with the Gryffindors they'd been teaching. Professor McGonagall herself burst in frantically asking every year whether all its girls were present.

After learning that Ginevra had gone to the bathroom during Defense Against the Dark Arts and never returned she said some very bad words and rushed out again.

For some strange reason Percival came and sat down with the second year boys.

"That Lockhart," he complained. How could he have let her go alone? He knew he was supposed to accompany her to the bathroom. And she's just a tiny little first year!"

"He's an adult," Harry reminded him. "Children should never criticise adults. They're older and know better."

"He lost Ginevra!" Percival shouted at him. "He lost my sister! My only sister!"

"Your sister?" Harry gasped.

Percival blushed. "Yes, but please don't tell her. She isn't old enough to know."

"But how do you know then?" Ron asked.

"Why, from my birthday letter, of course."

"Birthday letter?" Harry asked.

"Oh, don't you know? On your sixteenth birthday you get to know your whole name and if you want to and they want to your parents can send you a letter."

"And it said that Ginevra is your sister?" Ron asked. "Really?"

"Yes, it told me about all my siblings. But Ginevra's the youngest and the only girl. And if that idiot Lockhart has let some harm come to her then I don't care that he's a teacher. He's a bad one anyway."

Harry had to admit that he hadn't learned much in Defense Against the Dark Arts that year, and Professor Lockhart had let them get away that morning, too. If the basilisk had found them then, he and Ron might be lying petrified in the hospital wing now.

"But they are already brewing the restorative potion," Ron pointed out. "And at least being petrified would be a lot less boring than sitting around here waiting for Professor McGonagall to return."

"What if she hasn't been petrified, though," Neville asked. "What if she's ... is ... is ... dead?"

Finally Professor McGonagall returned, but the news she brought weren't good.

"Ginevra has been abducted by the Heir of Slytherin," she said. "According to his note she has been taken into the Chamber of Secrets and killed."

Percival screamed and buried his face in his arms. Some of the first years began to cry.

"Hogwarts is no longer safe. Therefore we have decided to evacuate the school. Please put all your belongings on top of your beds so that the house-elves will know which trunk to pack them into. Tomorrow morning right after breakfast the Hogwarts institute bus will take all first and second years to the magical nursery institute where temporary dorms will be created for you. About two hours later it will return here to take the third and fourth years to the magical primary institute. After lunch the fifth and sixth years will be transferred to St Mungos and finally the seventh years will be taken to the ministry of magic. There might be some confusion with classes and schedules over the next few days, but lessons will continue and the exams will take place as scheduled."

"But how can you teach in four different institutes?" Dean asked.

"Oh easily, we'll just apparate between the locations. Hopefully it won't last long however and we will soon move into a brand new institute where we will all be able to live together again."

Nobody really felt optimistic at those words, though and the professor quickly returned to more immediate matters.

"While you are still here, please continue to observe the safety rules and exercise extreme caution, especially when going to the bathroom. We are almost sure that the monster is a basilisk, a huge snake that kills by simply looking people in the eyes. He apparently moves through the pipes in the castle walls and might crawl out of any sink or toilet. If you only so much as suspect that he might be near you, close your eyes and run away as best you can without looking."

For a while they all just sat there in stunned silence. Then people started to get up and head for their dormitories to collect their possessions.

"Come on," Ron said suddenly right after Percival had left them - Harry wasn't sure whether to pack or to cry alone on his bed. "Let's go ask Myrtle. It'll probably be our last chance to see her. Our last chance ever!"

They got up and walked out. Nobody stopped them. The corridors were completely empty. Not a single teacher appeared to be on patrol. Harry and Ron made it into Myrtle's bathroom without a problem and Myrtle was more than eager to tell her story. Only after they'd heard it did Harry remember that Professor McGonagall had warned them about bathrooms.

"The basilisk could come out of a sink or toilet," he reminded Ron fearfully.

"Well, he came out of this one when he killed Myrtle," Ron said examining the sink in question closely. "What if he always does? There's a snake on here. Come, tell it to open."

Harry hastily closed his eyes and backed away.

"No," he said. "That's not safe. We have to tell a teacher."

"Alright," Ron agreed. "Let's get Professor Lockhart. His office is closest and he is the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher."

But Professor Lockhart didn't want to come with them and save Ginevra and the institute. He was too busy packing.

"But the institute is your workplace!" Harry protested. "It allows you to be productive. Aren't you at all loyal to it?"

"You might lose your job if you don't," Ron translated what Harry thought was too obvious to need explaining.

But Lockhart still wasn't convinced. He actually pulled his wand at the boys and attacked Harry with the word 'Obliviate'.

Harry didn't know that one, but managed to dive out of the way just in time and before he could attack again Ron had grabbed the other end of Professor Lockhart's wand. They each pulled on one end until, in his second attempt, Harry managed to cast Expelliamus and tear it away from them both. For a moment he just stood there with two wands in his hand wondering what to do next, but then Ron pointed his broken wand at Professor Lockhart and told him to accompany them to Myrtle's bathroom.

Lockhart obeyed.


	17. Chapter 17: The Heir of Slytherin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Notes: No, I don't think this Harry admires Dumbledore enough to summon Fawkes to help him. He'll need help from a different source and the way to get it also allows us a glimpse of something Harry isn't old enough for yet.

Chapter 17: The Heir of Slytherin

 

Percival Weasley couldn't distract himself no matter how hard he tried. He'd never even thought about such things as siblings before he'd turned sixteen, but when he'd gotten his letter and read all their names and his parents' proud comments on the achievements and talents of every one of them ... It had been magical, this sudden feeling of pride and belonging, a sense of connection in a way that he'd never felt even with his dorm mates.

And then there'd been that wonderful Sunday afternoon that he'd spent with his parents. Arthur Weasley and Molly Prewett Weasley had been so delighted to finally meet him face to face. Molly - his mother! - had hugged and kissed him! Arthur had told him how proud he was to have such a fine son, that they were so lucky to have seven so very unique and talented children, every one a special and wonderful person.

And now one of those persons was dead. Little Ginevra - Ginny, their parents had called her - would never have her own special day of first meeting her parents, of being hugged and welcomed and celebrated. Molly would never get to hold and kiss her, Arthur would never get to tell her how unique and wonderful she was. She'd never know there were people to whom she was unique and special, would never know her connection with Percival - no, Percy! - never know that she belonged.

Percy couldn't stand the thought. It drew him from the common room to his dorm, from his dorm to that of the fourth years to make sure that George and Frederic - Fred! - were alright, were still there for their parents to be proud of and look forward to meeting, from the fourth years' dorm to the second years' where ... Ron was not.

"He and Harry went somewhere," Dean told him when he asked. "Maybe they forgot some of their stuff in class or something."

"They were going to say good-bye to a friend of theirs," Neville supplied. "That ghost girl. Myrrh or something."

"Mytrle," Percy corrected automatically. "Moaning Myrtle. She haunts the ... Oh no! She haunts a bathroom! Stupid little boys! They probably don't realise how dangerous that is!"

Percy turned and raced down the stairs taking two steps at a time the way he'd always admonished the younger boys not to. He sprang to the portrait hole ignoring the concerned questions of the students still sitting there, threw it open and sprinted down the corridor to Professor McGonagall's office without bothering to close it. But then who cared about Slytherin intruders anymore? The Fat Lady couldn't close the pipes to lock out the basilisk.

Molly and Arthur - Mum and Dad! - couldn't take the loss of both Ginny and Ron. It would be too cruel. Percy, the responsible prefect son they were so proud of, could not allow that to happen!

He hammered on the door with both fists. "Professor McGonagall! Professor! Please hurry!"

The door opened.

"Percival?" the Professor asked astonished.

"Percy," he corrected. "I'm Percy." Suddenly that difference felt very important. "And Ron and Harry have gone to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom."

"Moaning Myrtle's bathroom?"

"To say good-bye. They're friends. They just want to be polite," he sobbed. "But it's a bathroom. They're so thoughtless, so naive. What if the basilisk ..."

"Right," said Professor McGonagall. "We'd better fetch them back. I don't think we need to worry, though. The basilisk has already struck once today. He's probably still ... digesting ..."

Digesting. Digesting Ginny! Digesting his little sister! Percy sobbed, turned and started running towards the bathroom forcing the professor to race after him.

When they entered the bathroom they found Myrtle standing with her hands at her mouth and staring at a pipe hole where the last sink ought to be if this were one of the boys' bathrooms Percy was familiar with.

"Professor?" he asked hopefully. "Is this hole supposed to be here?"

Professor McGonagall didn't answer. She merely raised her wand to her throat and said: "Sonorus. All Professors come to the first floor girls' bathroom immediately!"

Then it wasn't supposed to be there. Then the monster had broken out of the wall here and dragged Ron and Harry down to join Ginny in its horrid, slimy stomach. Percy felt tears running down his cheeks.

Soon the teachers began to arrive and examine the hole asking all sorts of questions and pushing each other and Percy out of the way.

Finally Professor Snape shoved through to Professor McGonagall and stated: "So this is the entry to the chamber?"

"It looks that way," Professor McGonagall confirmed. "Second years Harry and Ron have disappeared. They were last seen on the way here claiming to want to say good-bye to Myrtle."

"They went down there with a blond man in lilac robes," Myrtle reported gleefully. "They said he had to save somebody, but he didn't seem to want to go. I bet they're all dead now. The monster is horrid!"

Percy screamed and tried to cover his ears. He didn't want to know the gory details of his siblings' deaths.

"Gilderoy," Professor McGonagall stated with a sigh.

"This is no place for students," Snape hissed. "Get him back to his common room."

"Yes," Professor McGonagall agreed. She glanced over the assembled teachers. "Sybil, accompany Percival back to Gryffindor tower. But for once in your life, try to avoid scaring the students. Don't predict anything, just ... make sure they're all packing."

Percy followed the Divination teacher without protest, but a detached part of his mind wondered why Professor McGonagall had chosen her of all teachers.

 

With the student and the least combat-capable teacher safely out of the way the rest of the teachers descended into the pipe. Professors Snape and Flittwick took the lead unasked and Minerva followed them without comment.

She didn't mind surrendering the lead. She might be in charge of the school in Professor Dumbledore's absence, but Snape had the most combat experience and Flittwick had been a duelling champion once. Minerva doubted that she could pull her wand as quickly as either of them. But then she knew she was faster at transfiguring things and if they really encountered a basilisk ... She pulled her hat off her head and held it ready in her left hand, trusting in her co-workers' ability to hold off the monster long enough for her to transfigure it.

"So this is Slytherin's chamber?" Filius remarked. "Rather filthy and shabby for such a magnificent wizard."

"It can't have been built by Slytherin," Severus replied coldly. "It is much newer than that."

"Why not?" Minerva asked. "Who other than one of the founders could have built it?"

"Oh, use your head, Minerva," Severus sneered. "The founders lived over a thousand years ago. They never head of indoor plumbing. That can't have been added to the castle before the nineteenth century. Bernard can probably give us the relevant names and dates when we get back."

Minerva glanced at the teachers following behind her. Professor Binns was indeed missing. Oh well, he would be of very little use in a fight. At best he could have hovered between them and the basilisk to shield them against direct eye contact until he got petrified himself.

"Hold," Filius said. "I hear something ahead of us."

Indeed there was somebody there, but it was only Gilderoy and little Ron inspecting a discarded snakeskin.

"Oh hello," Gilderoy greeted them. "Do you live here?"

"He's lost his memory," Ron explained hastily. "Tried to use my broken wand to obliviate us and it backfired. And then the wall caved in. Harry is on the other side."

Minerva once again scanned her troops. She could not do without Severus or Filius in a fight and the more wands the better, but without his memory Lockhart couldn't be trusted to do anything right - he was unreliable enough when he had it - and Ron had to be taken to safety.

Whom should she spare? Kind hearted Pomona Sprout might not take well to fighting ... but this very day she'd ruthlessly cut up the mandrakes she'd nursed so lovingly all year. She'd probably rise to the occasion admirably. Professors Vector or Sinistra? Both were pure theoreticians.

"Victor," she decided after a moment. "Take these two to the hospital wing and," she glanced at the caved in ceiling. Were they sure Harry was on the other side or was Ron only hoping so? "Tell Poppy to get ready for further patients."

It took Filius only a moment to clear away the rocks. Thankfully there was no sign of Harry underneath, but he wasn't waiting for rescue on the other side either. The little fool! But of course he couldn't have known that they were on their way. He'd probably thought that Ron and Lockhart couldn't clear away the debris and gone to look for another exit.

The pipe ended at a door that stood wide open. Behind it they found the real Chamber of Secrets.

"Is this magnificent enough for you?" Severus asked Filius.

"But where is ..."

A movement behind one of the columns drew their attention. They moved towards it and saw ...

"Tom Riddle!" Minerva exclaimed. "Get away from them, you monster!"

Both Filius and Severus attacked Riddle immediately, but the strangely ephemeral Tom only laughed and their spells went right through him as he stood there twirling his wand in his hand carelessly, as if he weren't under attack at all.

At least Pomona was more successful. Instead of attacking Riddle she had cast a levitation charm on the motionless Ginevra and was now floating her towards the door. Harry too reacted correctly and followed the levitating girl unprompted.

The basilisk was nowhere to be seen so Minerva dropped her hat and started to fire spells of her own at Tom. They were no more successful than those of her co-workers. What strange sort of shield was this? It appeared to protect against direct magical attacks as well as impacts of solid objects and even attempts to transfigure Riddle or his clothing.

Severus ran towards him, an unwise move in Minerva's opinion, but then they had to remain in spell's reach in order to fight Riddle either way and Riddle wasn't attacking. Instead he hissed and Severus fell to his knees.

It took Minerva a moment to realise that the hiss hadn't been a spell directed at Severus. The Potions master was merely examining some object that was lying on the floor.

"Severus!" Minerva shouted. "This isn't the time ..."

"Minerva!" Professor Sinistra shrieked. "The statue!"

Minerva glanced at the statue and almost froze in horror when she saw the basilisk slide soundlessly out of its mouth. Her hat! Where had she dropped it? There!

The transfiguration hat to rooster only took a heartbeat, but the surprised bird took a moment to get his bearings, fluff up his feathers and ... crow!

The monstrous snake dropped to the floor dead.

"Incendio!" Severus cast at the small black book in his hands.

Tom shrieked in anger and cast a spell at him.

Severus only just managed to dive out of the way dropping the book, which wasn't burning.

Ignoring the others whose spells still weren't affecting him Riddle kept after Severus who rolled behind the nearest pillar then leaned out again and summoned fiendfire against the book. As the demonic flames devoured the pages Riddle too dissolved into black smoke.

Minerva held the others back from dispelling the fire until the book was completely gone. Then she turned her attention to Severus who was leaning against the column panting, but apparently not badly hurt.

"Horcrux," he said by way of explanation.


	18. Chapter 18: Dobby's Reward

Chapter 18: Dobby's Reward

 

An hour or two later Professor Dumbledore came to see Harry and Ron in the hospital wing.

Ginevra and Professor Lockhart had been removed to a place called St Mungo's where Madam Pomfrey said they'd get the care they needed. Next doors Professor Snape was still brewing the mandrake restoration drought.

"You're back, Headmaster," Harry said happily.

"Yes Harry, the school governors called me back when they heard there had been another attack, but I arrived too late to help in the final battle with Tom Riddle. Your friend Hagrid is on his way back as well."

"Tom was somehow bad, wasn't he?" Harry asked. "He seemed so nice when he was still in the diary."

"He was always very good at pretending," the headmaster agreed. "Many bad people can seem nice, if you do not know them very well, Harry. That is why one should be careful when talking with strangers."

"Is he gone now?" Harry asked. "Forever?"

"The ... memory I think you said it was? ... of Tom that was in the diary is gone forever, yes. But the man that Tom grew up to be is still alive and might come back again I'm afraid."

"Is he as bad as the memory?" Harry asked worriedly.

Dumbledore sighed. "I am afraid that he is even worse hard as that might be to imagine. Tom Riddle, the heir of the great Salazar Slytherin, grew up to become Voldemort, Harry."

"The man that killed my parents," Harry said.

And he had spoken so nicely with the boy!

"So Slytherin was evil, and his heir is evil, too," Ron said. "Are all Slytherins?"

"Our friends are not!" Harry protested.

"No, Ron, very few people are completely evil. Even those who follow people like Voldemort are frequently just misguided. And as for Salazar Slytherin, well it is hard to know. He lived a long time ago when many things were very different from the way they are now and we do not have all the information on his experiences and opinions that we would need to be able to judge. What we do know for sure is that on at least one occasion he spoke out against accepting Muggle born students at Hogwarts and that he did not build the Chamber of Secrets. He may merely have been worried about secrecy or rising numbers of students. Perhaps he even meant to suggest that creating a second school especially for Muggle borns would make the transition into the wizarding world easier for them. We do not know."

"But ... the chamber could only be opened by a Parselmouth!"

"So a Parselmouth must have built it - sometime in the last 250 years, which is how long Hogwarts has had indoor plumbing. It may well have been a descendant of Salazar Slytherin. The ability does run in the family."

"Headmaster," Harry asked remembering his last stay in the hospital wing. "What about Dobby?"

"Ah yes, Dobby really was Lucius Malfoy's house elf, but he wasn't acting on his orders. He had been engaged to marry one of the house elves that died defending the nursery institute when Lord Volemort attacked it and he believes that your survival honours her sacrifice. So when he overheard his master talking about the heir and the basilisk he felt obliged to protect you, which he did in his own clumsy fashion. The ministry arrested him after your report, but I believe he has already been released and returned to Mr. Malfoy. Of course it might well be that Mr. Malfoy no longer wants him. He too had to undergo questioning by the ministry, you see and now the basilisk affair has also cost him his position as school governor."

"How that?" Ron asked. "He didn't do anything, did he?"

"He ..." Dumbledore hesitated. "Well, it appears hat it was his idea to suspend me and now that it has turned out to have been the wrong choice the governors feel that he forced them into it against their will and intend to vote him off the board. Mr. Malfoy unfortunately is the kind of man that is likely to take such things out on his house elf. But do not worry over Dobby. I think he might be quite happy to be free to choose a place of employment for himself."

The door to the next room opened suddenly and Professor Dumbledore turned to it and smiled happily at the stern face of his Potions master.

"Ah, Severus, is the restoration draught ready then?"

"Yes, headmaster."

"Excellent, excellent. Then let us go and restore our poor students ... and of course the cat. We mustn't forget the cat, Severus."


End file.
